This Will be Good

Poetry. Mallory Tater’s THIS WILL BE GOOD tells the story of a young woman’s burgeoning femininity as it brushes up against an emerging eating disorder. As the difficulties of her disease reveal themselves, they ultimately disrupt family relationships and friendships.

These poems deftly bear witness to the performance of femininity and gender construction to reveal the shrinking mind and body of a girl trying to find her place in the world, and whose overflowing adolescent hope for a future will not subside.

“THIS WILL BE GOOD is a prayer, vicious and sweet. Tater’s dexterous language shreds the pink ribbons of nostalgia to remind that girlhood is both ‘sugared with fear’ and ‘diamond-hard.'” –Adèle Barclay,

“THIS WILL BE GOOD details the truths of girlhood; how young women treat themselves with cruelty and tenderness, fend off and court desire, and brace themselves for a world that both expects too much of them and yet never enough. These poems unfold as stories girls tell each other as they make space to share, cope, grieve, and hopefully, heal.” –Dina Del Bucchia

“Evocative and tactile as unearthed memory, THIS WILL BE GOOD follows the history of a family through years, homes, seasons, and bodies. They’re death and grief, sex and religion. A reckoning with womanhood, manhood, and memory, these stories have a feeling of being passed down, kept secret, and slipped in notes and gestures between intimates whose closeness is felt on the skin. Press these words to your breast.” –Sarah Gerard