{"id":3320,"date":"2020-09-04T13:35:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/?post_type=books&p=3320"},"modified":"2025-08-21T17:36:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T17:36:30","slug":"bandit-queen","status":"publish","type":"books","link":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/books\/bandit-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Bandit\/Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bandit\/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr<\/em> is a polyphonic, docupoetic project exploring Belle Starr, a notorious Wild West outlaw, and her unsolved murder in 1889. Belle Starr traded a privileged upbringing for a life on the lam\u2014marrying outlaws, thieving, and providing shelter for criminal gangs, all with her signature brocade and purple hats. After the media locked into her story, Belle Starr rocketed to fame. She \u201cbecame\u201d a compelling anti-hero, icon, and criminal mastermind\u2014The Female Jesse James. Newspapers and books fabricated details about Belle, and a mass delusion seemingly took hold. But who was Belle Starr? Where do fiction and fact overlap? Today\u2019s evolving media ecosystem\u2014fake news, deep fakes, carefully controlled social media profiles\u2014underscore the enduring appeal of the person vs persona tension. A feminist analog to Michael Ondaatje\u2019s Collected Works of Billy the Kid<\/em>, this archive-driven book merges documentary poetry by Margot Douaihy with scratchboard illustrations by Bri Hermanson to examine identity, desire, rule breaking, and (in)authenticity.
\n
\n<\/em>\u201cIn Bandit\/Queen, <\/em>Margot Douaihy burnishes Belle Starr\u2019s legacy until it gleams, buffing layers of misogyny and sensationalism until the power and possibility of a complicated woman show through. History alone isn\u2019t capable of imagining interiority into grave dust and brittle newspaper: it takes a poet of Douaihy\u2019s caliber to do it, with the potency of her verbal images and Bri Hermanson\u2019s visual ones enfleshing a ghost enough to speak.\u201d
\n\u2014Zoe Tuck, author of Terror Matrix <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why it is that our imaginations sometimes seize on one person, not known to us in real life, as an object of study and devotion. But it\u2019s a fact that the genius and virtue (vertu<\/em>, as Machiavelli used the word, to mean excellence, honor, and power) of such a person, even far away in space and time, can be life changing or even lifesaving. Margot Douaihy\u2019s wonderful poems about Belle Starr give us an experience of the thrilling, radical freedom with which Belle lived her life (at great cost to herself), and I\u2019m deeply grateful for the gift.\u201d
\n\u2014Patrick Donnelly, author of Little-Known Operas<\/em>, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em>, and The Charge<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBandit\/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr<\/em> is a marvel. Both well-researched and vividly imagined, Margot Douaihy and Bri Hermanson\u2019s book seeks the truth of Belle Starr\u2019s life, amidst all the myths that surround her, and through brilliant linguistic play, a range of poetic forms and gorgeous, unsettling images, this collection investigates our history and the ways we think about a woman who \u2018simply wanted to live, to ride, to feel lightning inside.\u2019\u201d
\n\u2014Nicole Cooley, author of Girl After Girl After Girl<\/em>, Of Marriage<\/em>, Breach, Judy Garland\/Ginger Love<\/em>, The Afflicted Girls<\/em>, and Resurrection<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBandit\/Queen<\/em> is a gunsight, no\u2014a kaleidoscope, no \u2014 two rocks striking spark. \u201co how she plays\u201d\u2014not only our protagonist, Belle Starr, but also Douaihy and Hermanson, whose works hitch together to create a lyric, startlingly hybrid narrative. Fiercely independent yet saddled with longing, Bandit\/Queen<\/em> gallops across the dusty plain where fiction and fact overlap. These poems and illustrations will haunt me for a long time, like \u201csmoke in my hair from a good fire.\u201d
\n\u2014Stacey Balkun, author of Sweetbitter<\/em><\/p>\n

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