Freak Lip: Essays of the Unsaid Volume 5

Why are some sentences impossible to speak aloud? When they become snared inside us, unsaid, how do they have such an impact on our relationships with others--and with ourselves? In Freak Lip, these sentences often relate to firsts: first period, first serious medical diagnosis, first sexual experience, first love. Cohen explores the often-isolating divide between what we easily express to ourselves internally and what's unbearable to articulate to another person. Finally expelling Cohen's own long-kept secret sentences in lyric essays that pair critical thought with everyday accumulations--dialogues with literary voices like Gertrude Stein, break-up emails, AirBnB reviews, and text-message threads--Freak Lip does more than document how the act of withholding jeopardizes our connection to others and ourselves. Refusing shame, it spills forth all that's unspeakable--our blood, our sex, our bodies, our truths.

Innovative Prose, No. 5
Selected by Katie Jean Shinkle

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Trp: The University Press of Shsu
Published: 09/25/2026
ISBN: 9781680034240
Pages: 137
Weight: 0.62lbs