Violence is Never Sexy

This is a pantoum I wrote about 2 years ago under the inspiration of Aristophanes' Lysistrata and having then recently read about Columbian women's Crossed Legs Movement (sex strike).  This applies the historical conflation of sex and violence to the nuclear age.  Since writing the poem, I've learned that the form of a pantoum does not demand repetition and replacement as strict as I have written; so am interested in revisiting and revising this poem, but here it is in its original state.  

Violence is Never Sexy

Violence is never sexy.

Missiles fire erotically erect

through tight canals

leaving shards of shrapnel.

Missiles fire erotically erect

wrecking flesh and blood

leaving shards of shrapnel

scattered far from the silo.

Wrecking fresh and blood

our trigger-happy husbands 

scattered far from the silo

birth impotent warriors.

Our trigger-happy husbands

spew radioactive ejaculate to 

birth impotent warriors --

failure to launch

Spew radioactive ejaculate to

carpet bomb the enemy;

failure to launch:

swift blow to ones virility.

Carpet bomb the enemy,

and we won't move our hips.

Swift blow to ones virility

when we block the target.

And we won't move our hips

simulating play with thunder rods;

when we block the target 

our husbands will writhe.

Simulating play with thunder rods

they'll masturbate for peace

when we block the target

our husbands will see.

They'll masturbate for peace

until the weapons are gone, then

our husbands will see

violence is never sexy.

Dante: Part Deux

Now it's time to discuss Akhmatova's poem, "Dante".  

Here, I am curious how the poem's title influences my own reading of the poem.  Beginning the poem with the title, "Dante" I read it with an understanding that the poem is about Dante Alighieri, thought showers rush in about the Inferno and other stages of the Divine Comedy.

As a reader at best only vaguely familiar with Dante's life and work, I want to highlight the context clues within the poem that reinforce the title, while simultaneously exploring the more universal themes within the text.

* "Even after his death he did not return/to the city that nursed him." (1-2): This immediately suggests exile and expatriation.  The use of "nursed" implies a maternal sensibility that links one's homeland with vitality (as if the city is responsible for both birthing and sustaining life).   Specifically, in reference to Dante -- he was condemned to permanent exile from his native Florence.  Furthermore, his city is continually referred to with feminine pronouns (e.g., "her streets", "sent her a curse"), which reinforces the maternal function of a city.

* "his beloved Florence" (11): This seems to be one of the most explicit connections to Dante, as he is inextricably linked to his Florentine identity.

* "But never, in a penitent's shirt,/did he walk barefoot with lighted candle" (9-10): "Never, in a penitent's shirt" suggests Dante's refusal to express sorrow or regret for his actions.  He believed he was not guilty for the accusations that forced his exile, so refused to pay the fines or confess.  More broadly, this statement seems to express a dignity of those wrongfully accused (or abused) and illustrates the refusal to return as a stranger to one's wrecked home.  Walking "barefoot" and with a "lighted candle" both emphasize a profound disorientation.  To require a "lighted candle" assumes darkness has fallen upon one's city and there are no relics of familiarity or recognition.  Furthermore walking "barefoot" demonstrates the profound lack of a citizenry expelled, forced to return to nothing with nothing.  The lighted candle toward the end of the poem is contrasted with the "torches" (5) at the beginning.  As he is sent from his city torches illuminate the night, which implies a certain lucidity as he leaves, but if he were to return the darkness would only be interrupted by a single flickering candle.

* "He sent her a curse from hell/and in heaven could not forget her." (7-8): The reference to hell and heaven are explicit gestures to the Inferno and Paradise of Dante's Divine Comedy.

The clues in this poem are undeniable; the subject Dante could be derived with or without the title.  This poem is extremely well written and resolved, yet I feel the risk of its title is that it tempts the reader to particularize the poem to Dante, closing it off to a more universal reading.  Instead this poem should be read as an allegorical account that represents the challenges of exile, namely how to reconcile one's relationship with the city he or she has been expelled from.

After two seemingly unrelated commentaries on two Dante-inspired poems, I have a series of questions:

Are both poems about Dante Alighieri?  What clues in "Identity Check" might support that reading?

How would a real character, Dante, affect the task of representation "Identity Check" attempts to resolve?

These poems are drastically different: one is originally Russian, one german; one was written in 1936, one is much more contemporary.  Can these differences be resolved?  Can these poems be compared in a way that is productive and yields new understanding?

Two Dantes

Today, I want to draw from two poems, by two distinct authors that glean inspiration from a common source: Dante.  

The first is "Identity Check" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.  

Identity Check

This is not Dante.

This is a photograph of Dante.

This is a film showing an actor who pretends to be Dante.

This is a film with Dante in the role of Dante.

This is a man who dreams of Dante.

This is a man called Dante who is not Dante.

This is a man who apes Dante.

This is a man who passes himself off as Dante.

This is a man who is the very spit and image of Dante.

This is a wax figure of Dante.

This is a changeling, a double, an identical twin.

This is a man who believes he is Dante.

This is a man everybody, except Dante, believes to be Dante.

This is a man everybody believes to be Dante, only he himself does not 

fall for it.

This is a man nobody believes to be Dante, except Dante.

This is Dante.

As appears in: Twentieth -Century German Poetry edited by Michael Hofmann (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 2005).  "Identity Check" by Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Translated by Hans Magnus Enzenberger.

The second is Anna Akhmatova's  "Dante".  

Dante

Even after his death he did not return

to the city that nursed him.

Going away, this man did not look back.

To him I sing this song.

Torches, night, a last embrace, 

outside in her streets the mob howling.

He sent her a curse from hell 

and in heaven could not forget her.

But never, in a penitent's shirt,

did he walk barefoot with lighted candle 

through his beloved Florence,

perfidious, base, and irremediably home.

From: Poems of Akhmatova translated by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward (Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1997). 

I will start with "Identity Check" and leave "Dante" for tomorrow.  

This is a poem.

This is a poem about a poem written about Dante.

This is a blog attempting to analyze Dante: real and imagined.

I could continue ad infinitum with this attempt at humorous insight, but am more interested in what the Enzensberger is trying to achieve.  The first line "This is not Dante" immediately draws me to Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" and subsequently reminds me of Foucault's This is Not a Pipe.  While both were immediately concerned with visual imagery and representation, this piece of literature continues to interrogate the relationship between reality and representation.  

The poem begins in negation and then proceeds with exclusively affirmative sentences, until the exact opposite concludes the poem, "This is Dante."  I see two different ways to read the poem: progressively with each line accruing meaning until the poem is viewed in entirety or as a series of disconnected sentences (disconnected insofar as each is to be read in isolation, as if each is competing to represent "this" most truthfully).  

This might be a bit unusual (Hegel might be rolling in his grave), but I propose to read this poem as an inverted dialectic.

Thesis: This is not Dante.

Antithesis: This is Dante.

Synthesis: Everything in between: "photograph of Dante", "man who dreams of Dante" "wax figure", et al. 

The verses in the middle of the poem seem to both cancel and preserve the differences of the first and last verse, which ultimately elevates Identity (however indeterminate that might be).  This poem acknowledges textual representations of Dante are inherently imperfect, yet in its attempt to do just that sets a precedent to constantly interrogate familiar modes of representation.

"Prayers" by Rae Armantrout

The following poem will appear in the November 10th issue of The New Yorker.  The author, Rae Armantrout , is an American poet and professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Despite its overtly religious title ("Prayers") and use of "resurrection" (2) this poem remains surprisingly secular.  In its immediate lines, "We pray/and the resurrection happens" (1-2) introduces the successful wish-fulfillment of prayer: that which is prayed for is realized.  The repetition of "g" sounds evidences a pattern to the power of prayer.  Aurally, "young" (3), "again" (4), "sniping [...] giggling" (5), "tingly" (6), "ringing" (7), alternating between the hard "g" sound and the "g" at the end of the word the ear grows accustomed to and begins to expect the "g" sound again and again.  This repetition suggests a known or guaranteed outcome to prayer within the poem's first chapter -- a resolve absent in the second.

The key shift in the opening lines of the second chapter is from prayer to "ask" (8).  While the "g" sound is initially present in "thinking" (9) its repetition grows more sporadic and eventually absent ("targets" (11), "recognized" (14), "triangles" (16), "rug" (17), "repeating" (18), "coming" (19)).  Initially there seems promise that to "ask" might yield the same outcome as prayer, but this confidence disappears in the last two stanzas: "The fear/that all of this/will end.//The fear/that it won't" (23-27).  

To "ask" creates an opportunity for either affirmation or denial and this indeterminate response creates fear and anxiety.  "Coming up..." (19) marks a shift from the poem's attempt to sustain and repeat the status quo; suddenly the poem's resolution can only be achieved through discussion.  The reader names a discussion "on the uses of torture" (21-22), but the italicized "this" (24) is overdetermined and representative of many divisive subjects. 

Ultimately, this poem seeks answers.  While textually there is only one prayer, the title "Prayers" is applicable insofar as the poem itself prays for the strength to change modes of interrogation and action.

Prayers

by Rae Armantrout

1. 

We pray

and the resurrection happens.

Here are the young

again,

sniping and giggling,

tingly 

as ringing phones.

2. 

All we ask 

is that our thinking

sustain momentum,

identify targets.

The pressure 

in my lower back

rising to be recognized

as pain.

The blue triangles 

on the rug

repeating.  

Coming up,

a discussion

on the uses of torture.

The fear 

that all this

will end.

The fear

that it won't.

Post-Election Poetry

Voting was anticlimactic.  Despite being my first Presidential Election, x-ing boxes on my absentee ballot with a ballpoint pen in the silence of the library (weeks before America would decide) seemed a perfunctory civic duty.  I eagerly sealed and signed my envelope then bounced to the mailbox, confident and enthusiastic with my decisions; but yesterday I missed standing in line with my fellow voters and making idle conversation with the volunteers at my polling center.  I envied red, white, and blue stickers on lapels reading "I voted".  Choosing to vote in my home state, I alienated myself from a collectively transformative display of democracy settling for a much more individualized demonstration of political participation.

For the past twenty-plus months we have heard the repeated mantra, "Yes, we can!" and last night that chant changed to, "Yes, we did!".  These two phrases are emblematic of Obama's campaign, and their sounds will continue to echo into his forthcoming presidency.  While not expressly a poem in and of itself, the repetition of "Yes, we can!" is expressly political and those three simple words bear significance above and beyond their dictionary definitions.  

Poetry is often conflated with politics, but here politics is demonstratively poetic.  Millions of Americans confidently projected hopes and dreams of opportunity and change into "Yes, we can!".  The meaning of this phrase is overdetermined, so what does it mean to you?

For those interested, here's some of our President-Elect's own poetry.

A Very Short Introduction to Poetry & Praxis

To craft a manifesto for this project in its incipient stages would invariably risk establishing expectations that inhibit its organic evolution.  My goal is for Poetry & Praxis to provoke creative discourse and experimentation in the interpretation of poetry.

The strength of its resonance will depend on a virtual community of contributors, so please share your thoughts and ideas.