Little Young Beauty

Dominique C. Butler has created a deeply personal and intimate compilation of poems, short essays, journal entries, and inspirational messages. The result is a powerful look at one "young beauty's" often painful coming-of-age. Butler's work reveals the rich inner workings of a young girl's mind while also showing how society conspires to silence voices like hers. As this beauty matures, she begins to truly understand the prejudicial and sexist undertones of contemporary culture.

Butler divides her work into nine separate sections: "Society," "Family & Friends," "Love," "Passion," "Heartache," "Anger," "Postliminary Sometimeness," "Goodbyes," and "Reflection." Within each section, poems are ordered chronologically. You can see the beauty's maturation before your very eyes as she encounters pain, grief, and sexual abuse but never lets it break her. Her story is one of self-discovery and empowerment.

Butler hopes that girls and women of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds will take her inspirational journey to heart. She believes it can provide light for every woman who has been harmed by individuals or society itself. Through Little Young Beauty, Butler explores the very meaning of being beautiful and the strength that inner beauty can give you.