Amber Showalter

Esteem Punk Amber Showalter

Disclaimer: This book was written by a 16-year-old emo-punk girl. In the year 2000. That's right, the poems in Amber Showalter's sophomore collection were actually written when she was a sophomore. In high school. She has pieced this book together now, twenty years later, in the hopes that those who are dealing with similar issues that she did as a teenager will identify with her words and feel less alone in their darkness. Esteem Punk chronicles Showalter's struggles as an unlikely aspiring model, who, after years of bullying and an incident of stalking that ended up criminal, turned to self-harm as a coping mechanism. Many of the poems were written during times of heartache and are almost lyrical, some have the urgency of crisis, and some point to the detrimental effects that our society's unattainable beauty standards can have. Showalter wants her readers to know that they are not alone in their struggles, particularly if they can relate to the topics of these writings, and that there are resources available to help. Of course, Esteem Punk is not without the edge, peppery curse words and glimmers of hope that readers have come to expect from Amber Showalter. But this time, it's an angsty, teenage Amber Showalter who has just started to play with poetry. We find ourselves anywhere from graffitiing a high school locker room with lipstick ("Graffiti in the Bathroom"), to staying out past curfew in a strange city ("Midnight, Dallas, Texas"), to reminiscing about the daily crossing of paths on the last night of summer ("Slides to be Slanted"). As always, Amy Siever's beautiful illustrations accompany Showalter's words, and do not disappoint.