Pet Peeves

I have to say... E. E. Cummings and Bell Hooks.

I remember the rationale employed by Bell vaguely, and here it is:

Throughout bell hooks’ career, her chosen pen name has been a subject of fascination. Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Kentucky, US, the writer changed her name to bell hooks to honour the name of her late grandmother — Bell Blair Hooks — and chose not to capitalise it to “emphasise the importance of the substance of her writing as opposed to who she is,” according to CBN.

As the author said herself in a 2009 interview with anarchist author Randy Lowens, it was a decision that was born out of a “gimmicky” trend during the feminist movement in the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

“When the feminist movement was at its zenith in the late ‘60s and early ’’0s, there was a lot of moving away from the idea of the person. It was: let’s talk about the ideas behind the work, and the people matter less,” said the author in 2009. “It was kind of a gimmicky thing, but lots of feminist women were doing it.”

The author added: “Many of us took the names of our female ancestors — bell hooks is my maternal great grandmother — to honor them and debunk the notion that we were these unique, exceptional women. We wanted to say, actually, we were the products of the women who’d gone before us.”

Bustle