1) Try writing a "gurlesque" poem. This might be a close imitation of one of the poems from the book, or something of your own. Play with kitschy, campy, grrly, grotesque stuff. The book gives us permission to be transgressive, to use words like "fuck" and "cunt," and to upend conventional sensibilities. But for our blog there are a few limits. Please, no poems about particular people on campus -- nothing that would make a person feel attacked. If you are willing, bring a copy to class -- I'd like to have us read a few in class.
2) Pick out a poem or part of a poem that you find really interesting. Point us to it. Quote lines from it. Explain what you find compelling/troubling/confusing/disturbing about it. Share your enthusiasm (or horror). Be specific and analytical.
Girldick
ReplyDeleteshe giggles as we're both in bed
and we're both telling stories
as I take her
Sunbeams filter through the window
as I blushingly tell you
I want you back here again
I walk in public like some trap
some weird boss character from a videogame
with some hidden form
some hidden secret
some hormones I want to take
Oh, I've gotten crazed stares and my share of names
My new names, my dead names, cute names for my genitalia
"ladyboner, girldick, junk"
I've been called names, but I rather not share those
it's better to enjoy this new world raging inside of me
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1) Lioness at the Shindig
ReplyDeleteMusic disregarding our opinion on ear fucking, weapons with the power to shake our home unbound by our normal rules, regulations, resentments.
Most, deep in the experience, throat cup after cup, time taking care of itself for a change.
My stage visible, playing out like she was told, but the satisfaction is in the pain, we want a fighter.
Sliding in and out of responsibility, quantity over quality for most, but we are the host, we have better to drink, and smoke. Fuck cigarettes.
She sees, and she strikes; nails digging deep, we turn and see her, arm falling past a pair we can hardly argue with.
Upward, her mouth is moving, not the way I want. What’s she saying?
Inviting herself most likely, fine but maybe she’ll get a little dykey.
2) The poem which seemed to jump off the page to me is called And Blindly We Forefeel. This poem had a unique way of peppering in profanity which seemed to fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into a completed work. This poem’s narration and pace invite the reader to patch together their writing into a story, which I enjoyed attempting. The grotesqueness of words were not overly potent in this poem, and while I enjoy provocative language as well as action, and have been known to swear profusely, the vague profanity was a nice break. This work had subtle but campy imagery, which seemed innovative to me; subtle injections such as, “we know our intelligence will betray the clits of sorrow” (33 Glenum, Greenburg). This is a metaphor which communicates both sensitivity and weakness of sorrow in a precise but odd way, I liked it.
1)Touch
ReplyDeleteTrue loves first touch
A drag across my skin
Pink on pink
The small of my back
The curve of my hip
The soft of His mouth
Oh, god.
True loves first touch
True hates first touch
A drag across my skin
Red hot touch
His hand in my pants
The other clasped around my wrist
His fluid in my body
Fuck.
True hates first touch.
New Love
ReplyDeleteHooked on you,
I shouldn't be.
It was only two days
that we spent, so free.
Was it love by night?
You stole my heart.
I miss you as the day fades,
come find me some way.
Drunken kisses make my heart feel warm
carefree, I wanna be yours.
Is it real? I sure hope so,
I don’t know real if it isn't so.
part2:
I enjoyed the line "There are words voluptuous/ as the flesh / in its moisture,/ its warmth" from the poem "Love". This line uses words like voluptuous to portray the sexiness words can have. As you say the word you can almost feel it as well. Other words like "flesh", "moisture" and "warmth" are so evidently sexual. The poem calls for lots of feeling and emotion in this line. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
From what I understood we only need to do either part one or part two, so I am doing part two. I tried really hard to find a poem other than "Blowhole" by Ariana Reines, but it stuck with me. I don't really understand it, it just sounds like anal sex. She definitely got the grotesque part in this poem. "Liquid shoot into her skull and leak out her eye hole." actually made me gag a little. I don't think the woman in the poem likes anal sex, or at least not with the man. In all this poem grossed me out and confused me the most out of them all. But, I think that it what made it stick with me, I tried so hard to find a different poem but this one just would not leave my mind.
ReplyDeleteCry & You shall Die
ReplyDeleteIn the destruction of earth
your pants and his came undone.
Dragons came from below
like . The gazes
made it seem super long. Everywhere,
anywhere there was a feel of silence.
In the air the stars
seemed distant, in reality, closer.
I ks'ed you. I showed you.
Walked to get my mind around this topic.
Cuddling would be different &
comparable with that of the past fuckings.
Huh, where would everyone go?
Forever I know my fate hidden in the
1) She parties. She potties. She panties.
ReplyDeleteShe sees a hole in the wall, and thinks
Maybe she knows what it’s like to be a wallflower.
He sees. He stiffs. He spreads
Her out. He fucks the fuck out of that hole in the wall.
He unglues her lips. Who cares.
They dance. They spin. They blow.
A conglomerate of freckles and veins and kneecaps.
And hips.
As wet as the flowers on the wallpaper.
2) I think that the poem that, I think the word is irked me the most would be "Margaret" by Brenda Coultas. Probably because the idea that a woman is looking for her baby in a glass jar, which means it would be dead, sounds pretty mortifying. And gross. Not only that, but the whole poem is a freak show. Seriously. It's about carnies and the woman, Margret's lovers that are in the show with her. I'm not exactly sure what the poem is about, but it stuck in my head the most. Maybe Arlos the gypsy boy didn't want to be the father? Maybe Margret was forced to put her baby in a jar because it would ruin her act with the monkey? Maybe it's because the baby was just as freaky and needed to be put on display for insurance reasons. Just speculations. It was a weird poem but I liked it in some parts.
Grey is still having technical difficulties
ReplyDeleteI really liked the poem "And Virgins Shout Fuck Off" by Elizabeth Treadwell. I like how the poem calls out filmmakers stating that they only use "youths Particulars" as in the uber pretty super fit minority of the population while making the rest of us look like and feel like random freak mistakes. I love how virgins are shouting fuck off to religious men, because they are not virgins because of some forced idea of chastity and mens superiority, but because they choose to be virgins and they will choose when to not be virgins.
Grey
ReplyDeleteRun to class in last nights clothes
Nurse a migraine and try to take notes
Take a test and ace that shit,
Hot mess, yes but we studied hard
And didn't miss out on our fun
Cause we're be
Shouting while we have the lungs
Speaking in such random tongues
Let them think it's cause we're young
Though it makes us feel alive
Going on such random drives
Hitting on the cutest guys
We don't give a single fuck
We'll just keep on
Trying things we shouldn't
Doing things you wouldn't
Having fun you couldn't
Making memories you'll never have
Living life like you could only dream
One you'll never be able to see
Because fuck the haters and fuck the bores
I'd rather be the biggest whore
Than a fifty year old trying to recapture a dream
Cause in suburbia nothing's as it seems
So don't pay attention to lines, snort em
And don't open your fucking mouth to the rumor mill
Unless you want to be paying a hospital bill
The poem that really stuck with me was "Fated' by Ariana Reines. This wouldn't leave my mind because of how true it rang for me. When you truly despise someone, you will never forget them, like the line "I hate you therefore we will be together forever". With such vivid phrases like "slice me open... if I ever fall for you again", I couldn't get the poem out of my head. But is was the almost soft melancholy of the phrase "I am the bride of this ok day" that captured my attention the most. It sounds so simple but holds a world of meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe subject of my current blog post is “The Victory of Folly (As Pluto)” by Nada Gordon. The reason I wrote about this work was because it was pretty easy to know what was being said in this poem. Throughout this poem, Gordon appears to focus on the speaker’s male genitalia, also known as a penis, as well as the relationship the speaker seems to have developed with his genitalia. You can tell that she is talking about a penis because she writes in the poem, “When I masturbate a small amount of white lubricant comes out from the / middle of my victory.” I don’t know what else she could be describing and this is what I think, so I say it’s about a penis. Also when she writes “What is priapism?”, she has to be talking about a penis because priapism is when an erection (of your penis) last longer than four hours and you have to go and seek medical attention. The part of the poem that I had the greatest difficulty interpreting is the part when she writes “My dog passed away. / I had a dog, now I only have my victory.”. I guess this could mean that the only reason for wondering about and playing with his “victory” is because his dog died and now the speaker has nothing else to play with? Gordon seems to imply that the speaker has developed a relationship with his penis similar to the one formerly shared with his dog. It just seems like an almost random thought that was thrown in there to make you scratch your head and wonder why it is in there.
ReplyDeleteOn "For the Boys" by Wagner,
ReplyDeleteThe second stanza of this poem is pretty disturbing to me. Actually, I'd be lying if I said the whole thing wasn't disturbing to me, and all the more true because of it, but I'd like to focus on the second stanza. In the first stanza we're asked to imagine what it's like 'being fucked' as a woman. Notice how Wagner says 'being fucked'. There is no romance here and no equality where each partner plays a part. Perhaps there is pleasure, but mostly there is male dominance over the female who is 'being fucked'. Then Wagner brings up workmen. Think stereotypical wolf-whistlers. Then comes the really disturbing part. "Now there was/in a transparent skybox/someone watching my body and giving it/a score". The point being, sex for women is often not about mutual fulfillment or whatever. It is a performance, like she is acting in a porno. "I berated myself for letting it/hover" Wagner writes. The subject of the poem is worried she has, somehow, made a mistake in her performance. I find this disturbing for two reasons. One would be that it simply isn't right that the woman should have to perform for the man, etc, etc. More disturbing though is the use of imagery. "Someone watching my body and giving it a score". There is no privacy here in which the woman can freely ... express herself, so to speak. Rather, she feels like she's under a microscope having her every move dissected. She is naked, exposed - in more ways than one.
The poem I found interesting was Ariana Reines's "Couer de Leon" on pages 37 and 38. As a gurlesque poem, I found it to be less campy and grotesque than most of the others we've read so far, with only some less-desirable language and mentions of a phone sex operator. There was no particularly disturbing images like Cathy Wagner's "This Is A Fucking Poem" with its mandibles and bug brain. The most troubling thing for me was that the narrator, who I am assuming is female, tries to assuage the male novelist.In a gurlesque poem, I would have expected for there to be more of a "fuck you, whiner" message to it. Instead, she seems more apathetic than anything else while the male novelist seems to get bent out of shape. While I like the implication that you don't have to boost a man's ego by telling him his writing is good or get defensive when met with aggression, I was kind of expecting something.... more.
ReplyDeleteNow, as a poem itself, I loved it. The narrator's apathetic perspective works with the enjambment sprinkled liberally throughout, and the idea that, yes, a man can write about his love with a phone sex operator but that doesn't mean that his most heartfelt writing equals decent prose. I think that line 9 ( "(I did not mean to say it like that)" ) establishes the man's underlying aggression without outright saying it, and that the narrator's further display of talking rationally and calmly to an aggressive male is thoroughly entertaining because this man is not getting a reaction out of her that he wants, which is either an initial reaction of praise that he thinks he deserves, or a reaction of submission when his temper turns sour. That's what I enjoy the most.
A Night to Take Back
ReplyDeleteClothing draped the floor,
Mounds of them laying everywhere
From last nights excursion.
They laid in bed together
Neither of them pleased,
Hoping what might being an imagination,
Both breaking someone else’s heart.
Looking into each other’s eyes
Trying to remember.
Trying decipher what this meant.
What happened last night?
They couldn’t comprehend could have been.
They felt different,
There were scratches
Bites,
Cuts
Marks
There was no doubt what happened
This would have been the first time
They had ever done that.
They started to move
There was a knock
And a scream
Open this fucking door.
Midnight In Manhattan
ReplyDeleteThe sleeplessness,
the street bums,
the crack whores,
the subtle hums of the metro rails.
All these things engulf the night,
creme de la creme.
The most pure indictment of human nature,
you'll find in the streets of Manhattan.
The city that never sleeps,
insomniac city.
A melting pot of human excrement.