Beginning With O by Olga Broumas

Reading Broumas' book of poetry is an uprising. She is not someone you open up and read to swiftly pass the time. As I read her work, I felt I was anchoring grey matter. I also felt as if I were witnessing a naive child come to her demise, especially in her poems at the end of the book in the chapter entitled "Innocence". Ironically, it is through this uprising that the demise seems to gain potential.



Situations become disturbing when innocence is involved. Broumas' poetry is highly sexualized and naive. The interesting thing about her lines of poetry is that I feel like I create my own metaphor. Take this line, for example from "Cinderella"...



I am a woman in a state of siege, alone



as one piece of laundry, strung on a windy clothesline a

mile long.



This metaphor allows me to take the image given to me and create my own assumptions. Broumas creates an "unknown" in her poetry and it is very appropriate when it comes to writing a poem based on a fairytale. When reading a fairytale, I often feel that there is a queer or absurd aspect that I'm missing out on. Broumas creates that queer/absurd aspect but still my imagination is left to wonder and even worry. That line about the laundry on the mile-long clothesline brings new images into my mind. A woman being sexually abused. Passed from one man to the next whether he passes her forward or she passes herself. A woman left alone in a dark room. A woman standing on a corner, the sidewalks are wet. A carcass for all the predators to feast on at once.



Another interesting example is the poem "Rapunzel". When it comes to rendering this tale, ti seems typical that a woman poet would write along the lines of abuse or loss of innocence. A hurt child would be seen. Terror and pity would enter the reader's gut like a punch. But Broumas uses this opportunity to write a persona poem that reveals a yong woman who feels she shares something beautiful with an older woman. I loved this part:



...Every hair



on my skin curled up, my spine

an enraptured circuit, a loop of memory, your first

private touch.



There is a lot of lesbian-imagery in her poems. I can't help but think about Humbert Humbert and Lolita. how Lolita, for some parts of the novel, seemed to not mind the sexual advances. She seemed to even blossom through them.

I enjoyed Broumas' craft. Her use of the fairy tale in her poetry differs much from Sexton's. When Sexton seemed to use fairy tales as a reflection of abuse and loss of innocence, Broumas' poetry is an uprising and defense for desire, even if that desire seems taboo.

Ed Ochester & Jan Beatty

Ed Ochester is living.

That was the thought that often crossed my mind while reading his book Unreconstructed. That doesn't mean that I think he is some thrill-seeker that eats animal testicles, jumps off high cliffs, and never sleeps. It means that I know he is human. That he worries his loose tooth with his tongue, that his cat watches his testicles as they float in the tub water, that he had a little infant son who sang. His poetry somewhat reminds me of Charles Bukowski--although I don't see Ochester as a womanizing drunk--in that simple, beautiful moments in life are captured...be it while roofing a house, listening to a bitching wife, thinking about Joyce, or (my absolute favorite) watching a blind child eat crocus. I liked the poem so much, I'll share it here:

APRIL, NEAR THE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND

I come up to

a column of blind children,

two by two, holding hands,

led by their teacher,

out for a walk in the sun

and four have fallen behind,

stalled at a garden where one

has picked a crocus and

is tearing at it with his teeth,

tasting crocus, delicately,

chewing and tasting, and

the teacher halts the group

and runs back to yell

what are you doing?

will you please

tell me what you're doing?

*

I have a passion for the senses. I adore the sensuist writers/scholars such as Diane Ackerman. Also, this poem is very useful for my thesis where one of my major focuses is the act of "stopping" or "pausing". Poetry itself embodies the act of stopping to pay attention to it, but I like going a bit deeper than that by actually embodying the act much like how this poem does. Not only is the narrator of this poem pausing to observe these blind children, but the poem itself is about pausing. The children pause (or stalled) and are thus left behind, almost in a different world. One child consumes the crocus, for he is sensing the essence of the crocus since he cannot experience it through sight. He also, perhaps, experiences it more intensely through his other senses (like taste!). And how I love the ending where the idea that this child is in another world is even more noticeable, for the teacher is appalled and questioning much like how we question why dogs, if they have such a great sense of smell, must get so up-close and personal with disgusting things. Right? I loved this poem.

Ed Ochester also reminds me of the former poet laureate, Robert Hass. I suppose it is because of his ability to walk on the ground in his poems, but capture ideas that are not on the ground. Another reason Ochester reminds me of Hass is the solitude in these poems. In most of these poems, the narrator is very hermit, but peaceful. Some poems speak to a specific person, be them friends or long-dead poets like Basho, the "father" of the Haiku. Basho was a wandering hermit, as well. Both Basho and Ochester have in common that they prefer their solitude, but at the same time, they are not alone. Ochester writes in "Poem for Basho", "How one of the pleasures/of silence is finally/returning to your friends."

The format and technique used in this poem is very important, as well. It is divided into small haiku-looking stanzas (I did not research it, but perhaps Ochester did write this poem in a form that is related to the haiku, like the hokku or waka) that capture small moments. The "point" of a complete haiku is to capture a small, brilliant moment. The first line, supposedly, must contain the subject of the poem. The second line must contain action, and the third line must tie everything up in a tight, amazing conclusion. Typically, in ancient Japanese haiku, the theme revolved around nature. But rules are meant for breaking and changing, I suppose.

I'm sure that what most people noticed about Ochester's poetry is all the pop-cultural references he uses. These references are further proof that Ochester treads on the same ground we do. And literally! He writes about Apollo and Leechburg which are towns adjacent to where I lived! I was in Leechburg today, as a matter of fact. It's nice to see a local "Pittsburgh" poet not just write about the big city for once, but the spindly, in-the-middle-of-nowhere towns that a lot of us can relate to.

There is a poem in here that I love, and maybe Ochester (or his editor) loves, for it is at the very end of the book. The poem also relates to our class, for he is speaking to Shiva's son Ganesha, the Hindu god of Good Fortune and wisdom. I like the parallels in this poem, between the narrator and Ganesh. There is the image of one-tusked Ganesh with is missing tusk and there's the image of Ochester, worrying his loose tooth while driving away from Birmingham. There is also the image of rice repeated between the two of them in their separate worlds. The final line in the poem: "oh cripple and fool and holy one" confuses me in a way that feels right. Is the narrator calling himself these words or is he still talking to Ganesh? Interesting.

Jan Beatty's poetry is very physical. I love the poem "Red Sugar" and how motivated it is by body-fluidity--like there is some serum inside us that makes us move, decide, and live. The poem itself is fluid just the same. And she gave this serum such a good name...red sugar...sweet, but you still cannot help but think of some special blood. It is very sexy. I loved this excerpt:

...I heard it once

when I was waitressing, something

made me turn my head, made me

swivel to look at a woman across

the room, wasn't even my station,

but the red sugar said, go.

This poem in a way fits in with the theme of our class, if you stretch it a bit. Beatty invents this body-molasses that makes our decisions and weighs like ocean-water on our plans and thoughts. It is like she is inventing a myth for us to follow. It seems child-like in a way, like this red sugar is something her mother might have warned her about or told her stories about. It almost seems like an imaginary friend, as well. There is a very disturbing quality to it. I like it.

Her poem "The Day I Stripped" is also very good. It is yet another sexy and dark poem that enters the fantasy and consciousness of a young woman, yet again. When reading this poem, I felt I was becoming her, which is a very interesting technique. In this poem, the narrator feels she is becoming a stripper, but realizes that she is not through the intrusion of an outside character. I am going through the same scenario when I read this poem. I feel I am becoming the narrator, but the narrator eventually reminds me that I am not her. I was so drawn into the poem, that I was stripping my own identity.

I like the disappointment there.

Anne Sexton's "Transformations"

I felt a bit betrayed by this book. When I thought Sexton would be literally reinventing the fairytales, she was just retelling most of them in a poetic format. Quite a few times, she'll add in a few biting quipps that emphasize her sarcastic voice, humor, and wit that she's so well-known for. I read this book side-by-side the fairytales told by the Grimm brothers. It almost seemed as if Sexton read the fairytale and wrote the poem in the duration of one cup of coffee. Don't get me wrong! I like Sexton a lot. Here is one of my favorite love poems by her, actually, that a loved one recently brought to my attention:

Us

I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed
your feet dry with a towel
because I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!

Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o'clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.

*

But I do enjoy several aspects about this book. Like I already mentioned, I like the humor she instills within these poems. There is often a sense of urgency and impatience in these poems. And since these poems are supposed to be fairytales, it makes me wonder about this urgency. I wonder...is she impatient to tell the story or to write the poem? Or both? Sometimes she seems annoyed by the protagonists she must write about in this book. Especially the women, who in fairytales are always damsels in distress. I can only imagine that this is a huge turn-off for Sexton. So with her big, bold voice, she'll be critical or mocking of these princesses and damsels (daughters!) in distress. Here is an example of Sexton's impatience within the poem "Rumpelstiltskin".

The king married her
and within a year
a son was born.
He was like most new babies,
as ugly as an artichoke
but the queen thought him a pearl.
She gave him her dumb lactation,
delicate, trembling, hidden,
warm, etc.
*

Not only does the syntax of the poem make the poem seem rushed, but so does the sarcasm and the use of the "etc" at the end. The syntactical rush comes from the use of all the commas to create a laundry-list of domesticity that Sexton does not seem to want to humor. She claims that babies are typically ugly and creates potential commentary by stating that of course the queen thought the ugly baby to be a pearl. It's very interesting and I think her technique is very...her.

There are several examples of Sexton mocking the happy-go-lucky endings of these fairytales. For instance, in the poem "The White Snake", when the man wins the princess' love and charm, and are bound to live happily ever after, Sexton writes, "They played house, little charmers,/exceptionally well." And she ends the poem with an image of this happy couple boxed away like some sweet Christmas package as if stilling them within time. But Sexton makes it a bit more dismal because she can and writes, "...living happily ever after--/a kind of coffin,/a kind of blue funk./Is it not?"Sexton ends her poems not with periods, but with a smash of her cigarette butt.

And Sexton was also very impatient with the princess in "Rumpelstiltskin" who could not for the life of her spin straw into gold. Sexton writes, "Poor grape with no one to pick./Luscious and round and sleek./Poor thing./To die and never see Brooklyn." It's hilarious, right? The little tart princess is belittled by Sexton. She despises how the princess cries. She writes, "She wept,/of course, huge aquamarine tears." Sexton mixes beautiful images with sarcastic humor in order to belittle the princess. The "of course" is her left hook and the "aquamarine" is Sexton playing along with the overly-exaggerated language often used in fairytales.

Another interesting aspect of all these poems is that they are told much like fairytales. In the beginning of each poem is Sexton's complete and utter voice. The story is not yet begun, but she's giving a little prologue concerning what is bound to happen in the fairytale that will ensue. Some are a bit confusing and some are very dismal. The most dismal is in the final poem of the book, "Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)". I will quote just a small portion of this prologue that in my opinion emphasises the darkness that Sexton wants to portray in this specific fairytale:

Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as honeysuckle.

*

Dark, isn't it? Of course, of all the poems in _Transformations_, this specific poem least follows the actual fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. These prologues to all of these poems are what interest me the most considering the rest of the poems are just the fairytales retold with a few "asides" from the poet herself. But that's just my opinion.

I would like to read more of Anne Sexton, of course. I heard that her book of love poems were especially good, so I'll have to check them out.