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.