NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- It is the inherent and, perhaps, insidious predisposition that causes a cerebral double take whenever a speaker juxtaposes positions of power with a feminine pronoun. Like, the U.S. president who nominated a top general for her secretary of defense or the general who sent her troops into combat.
In Muse and Drudge, poet laureate Harryette Mullen wrests language from its designated pedestal with the intention of calling into question the suspicious typologies, hierarchies, and assumptions underlying predominant sexual (and racial) discourse.
Mullen uses language poetics primarily to challenge (in particular, to have the reader herself challenge) certain dualisms that have become systemic to a Western logics of domination.
In other words, the supremacy of male over female.
The importance of poetic device to Mullen’s agenda cannot be underestimated. For instance, word play and jumbled (or simply non-existent) narratives lead the reader to consider and be wary of the construction of language, meanings and, ultimately, identity. Thus, in a more subtle fashion, Mullen can nonetheless make noticeable gestures towards her politics in her work.
Secondly, by motivating the reader mainly through poetics, she avoids the confrontational tone of many so-called “oppositional” writers who often succeed more in alienating than enlightening readers. Instead, the reader is at liberty to navigate the fragments, puns, and images and generate her own conclusions.
As the thematic gestures in Muse and Drudge focus on the rewriting of the female, I have chosen to attempt a reconfiguration of the male gender (and sexuality) as it relates to the lamentable Western culture of domination.
This, of course, poses an unmistakable political dilemma because, as we know, such a culture persists and I, however wittingly, am part of the problem.
How might one – in particular, how might a man – rewrite male sexuality without being politically redundant (that is, telling the reader something she already knows) or, worse, perpetuating the very logics in question? Here’s my attempt below, followed by an analysis.
Prophylactic Grapheme
For Bob Perelman
strong palm dangling wax on a single candle you are washed with chaffed tissue some plank some beam and something in between
one don’t have to look too hard silent nightingales gather and swoop cause quick and to the point to the scripter go the spoils
a slow sinewy hygiene congeals our human stew suck the suns of fat tits to wit hit back or relax
good ol’ frank I simply can’t unlock it you screech your wheels by unclaimed space half expecting a sexy catastrophe
remove some certain vertebrae spin your wheels till April bitter spinach glitters arcane sweet lime spine
easy colonies fallen across diaphanous glass the way you talk about it worn brittle thin
just between us woman with word curves double folded switch back swoon scars with cinnamon cigars
sitting still famished still I can hold my own others can point fingers it’s the oldest trick in the book
anemic lover dug grubber take it from me bone picking stone throwing control ain’t alone in the shoulders
you got caught tongue stuck up in some honey smooth moving jigsaw conflux stir up a succulent something
fresh seventeen thing fantastic hip harmonics out of tune spruce rooster crocodile idling
slip the jewels on a middle digit do what you must turned away faces tend to mend spaces alive saliva floods medicine buds
prophylactic grapheme burst and spilt in storefront windows you see you’re not so safe indeed patting the backs of sober widows ###
Feminism is the best (and perhaps the only) place to start.
So, for the most part, my male quatrains are self-effacing when erotic, and ironic when misogynistic. With the exception of a few stanzas, the ambiguous male characters (and the metaphorized parts of them) in the poem are not in control. They are either outdated and anachronistic or young and inexperienced. They pursue a long since extinct type: the obsequious female. Or, they simply cannot understand what makes women “tick” (looking for the key to a door that is itself a myth).
Of course, there is some harmony between the sexes but where it occurs it is (hopefully) as mysterious and peculiar as the harmony between the poetic fragments themselves. But, somehow, it happens; it must happen because, like Mullen, I wish to avoid overt polemics. While I attempt to confront the culture of dominance by addressing the way we males think and talk about sex, women, and ourselves, there is little sense in inverting it by resorting to radical feminism or counter-dominance.
In addition to approaching the dualisms of the culture of domination frontally (that is, by representing the nuances of masculinity as I see them), I address them as they relate to the interaction between poet and reader.
To be sure, questions of domination, submission, authority, and tradition arise as frequently in poetic discourse as they do in sexual discourse. Who is in control? Who establishes the rules of the game? How might these rules be circumvented or altogether changed?
In writing "Prophylactic Grapheme," I found it useful to eroticize the reader-writer relationship and to consider the dynamic in terms of a culture of domination in which, traditionally, the reader’s agency has been subverted by authorial intent, narrative linearity, and syntactical constraints. After all, it is just as important to challenge one oppressive construction (gender politics) as the other (prescriptive aesthetics).
Stylistically, the quatrains preserve a great deal of Mullen’s aesthetics. The strophes are typically comprised of fragments that only occasionally rhyme. The fragments, in turn, consist of sonically dependent syllables. Much of the diction is meticulously punned. Process is at the forefront of each line, hopefully encouraging the reader to feel complicit in the poetry, rather than privy to it. Narrative is apparent only in isolate flecks; not only is context avoided, decontextualization is stressed.
Like Mullen, I attempt to avoid easy meanings, neat syntactical packaging, and linearity for the reader’s sake. , a TheSequitur.com Editorial Board member-at-large, studies law at Vanderbilt University.
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