After battling food, weight, and self-esteem issues for years, Trish Dougherty, a poet, mother, and graduate student at the Bread Loaf School of English in Middlebury, Vermont, decided to employ her strengths of self-perception, humor, and the written word to wrestle her demons to the ground.
While touching upon the shame of diets, the pressure of media-shaped expectations, and self-love, Forty Poems for Forty Pounds also weaves the constant of weight as self-reflection into all aspects of life from looking at the stars to the shaping of “tall and slender” pottery. Forty Poems for Forty Pounds is an engaging collection of poignantly vulnerable, humorous, and insightful poems that will remind anyone who endures the similar daily whispers in their head that they are not alone and that self-love and acceptance is a choice for the “now” and not a reward to be earned “some day”. Presented by Town Hall Theater and Project Y, director Michole Biancosino brings this book of poetry to life on stage with 40 community members, each taking on a poem from Trish’s book.
Recorded at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, VT 3/12/23.
Producer: MCTV