Laurie Halse Anderson – laureate 2023 1
Laurie Halse Anderson, author “This is the story
of a girl who lost her voice and wrote herself a new one.” She uses the form of the poetic memoir to call up her own memories and experiences, a process that connects to her other published works. Like Melinda in Speak, Anderson was raped at the age of 13, an act of violence that affected both her life and her work as an author. Shout is the lyric counterpart to Speak, and, as its title emphasizes, daring to speak is not enough. To survive, you have to shout. “The only thing that helped me breathe / was opening a book” writes Anderson in one of the poems. And the closing lines of the poem “#MeToo’” leave no doubt about what the author wants to say: ”Me to be stronger / you to stand taller / we to shout louder / than they thought / we could”. In the writing of Laurie Halse Anderson, the yearning for love and belonging is a recurring theme, and in her texts she evokes conditions, moods, and emotions with arresting intensity. But her darkly radiant realism never shies from even the hardest things. “The only thing that helped me breathe was opening a book.” Laurie Halse Anderson 19