Poems to be read by the refrigerator light...

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.

Forty Poems for Forty Pounds is for anyone who has struggled with self-worth through their relationship with food. 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.