SHOUT
What list does Anderson provide within the poem entitled “forgiveness” (206) and for what purpose does she include this list?
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Near the beginning of the poem, Anderson provides her first instruction to the reader, saying that the reader should figure out the age they had been when a stranger touched her body “with danger in his hands” (206). Quickly, however, Anderson changes tactics, admitting to the reader that she knows “it’s not usually a stranger” (206). She follows with a list of possible abusers in the reader’s life or past, including a brother, an uncle, a grandfather, “your teacher, priest, boss, date, best friend, best friend’s brother, best friend’s father, coworker, president, housemate, president, housemate, professor, butcher” (206) and so on. She wants every reader to understand how ubiquitous and purposefully covert the problem of sexual violence truly is within society.