TROYAN, Cassandra
Freedom & Prostitution

Name the dead. Mourn the dead. Defend the dead. Sociality does not end at death. Cassandra Troyan’s Freedom & Prostitution asks survivors to avenge the dead by striking a blow to the patriarchal power structure that renders sex workers disposable. Here is a poetics of sex work against work, one that does not shirk from conflict but instead enters the scene of brutality to lay bare the violence that constitutes the category “woman.” By moving through that pain the poems are transformed into a guttural shriek that summons the chorus of insurrectionary whores to “strike from the sky.” Refusal takes the form of a swarm. To put it bluntly, this book makes me want to fuck shit up.

Jackie Wang

Published by The Elephants, 2020
Poetry