Lot of My Sister is a 2001 chapbook by Alison Stine, containing 13 medium-length free verse poems.

The poetic collection focuses on matters of the body, and is mostly set in the dusty wilderness of the rural Midwest. Blood is a motif that twists through the entire work; both the result of violence and of defloration, though there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference. There are also a few poems told from some very interesting perspectives, like the wife of Jack the Ripper.

Even through the dusty tone, it is a very political work, focusing on the oppression of women as a very personal matter, seen through the eyes of one. Much of the work focuses on violation, humiliation, and powerlessness inflicted by men that she loves. It reads much more like a resigned journal entry than a treatise.

I don’t believe that poems focusing on women should be pigeon-holed as only being for women, but it is a fact that women (I am of course including transgender women) might relate to this collection more. Otherwise, this poetry collection is for anyone who (like me) prefers to read densely-packed, intensely personal poetry.