Forty Poems* for Forty Pounds: (*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, th...