Celebrating Poetry

Melanie has been reminding me that April in the US is celebrated–by the artsy-fartsy elite, at least–as National Poetry Month. I decided I could celebrate and accomplish some self-promotion at the same time.

Now, let me admit that I have some issues–my own personal issues–with poetry. I don't always feel that poetry is my friend, although I'd like to be attracted to it. If I'm reading a novel and there's an offering of poetry, or something nonfiction with some poetic examples, I often skim through or skip over the poetical parts. I don't know why; some primal fear of some sort.

For years I felt that I didn't understand poetry, which is to say understand it in a deep way. I could read it, analyze as necessary, see allusions and metaphors and symbols and interesting structural things. I even wrote a computer program (in FORTRAN, on punch cards!) in college (this is thirty years ago now) with a fellow student to analyze feet in Greek poetry. But intuitive understanding seemed to elude me and poetry left me unsatisfied, if not exactly dissatisfied.

Then the oddest thing happened. In 1994 I had my revelation about hermeneutics* and thereafter I felt like I understood, really understood, poetry. The problem was that even though I now understood it, I didn't really enjoy it all that much more. Clearly something was and is still missing in my dysfunctional relationship with the poetic arts. But, I'll keep trying.

Nevertheless, I'll offer a poem. Right here, right now. Naturally it has a bit of a story.

I found out just a couple of months ago that my friend and long-time editor Richard Labonté was putting together a collection of bear stories for Cleis Press. The anthology, expected to be published at the end of July, is called Bears: Gay Erotic Stories. (TLA has prepublication information, which is obviously incomplete since Jay Neal is not mentioned, but we'll let that pass for now). To keep the story short, I'll have a story in the collection (and it's a story with its own story, but that's another story altogether).

Every one of these anthologies comes with short "author bios" in the back of the book, usually about 100 words written by each contributor. I'd used variations on the same five or six sentences for several years and I wanted something new.

So, instead of a bio as such, I wrote a poem that I thought expressed my attitudes about my fiction. It's actually a pastiche, as you will recognize, of Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric", so I think of it as my "Homage to Whitman".# Authorship is attributed to Jay Neal, of course.

I sing the body hirsute and husky,
The legions of those I love have girth and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, write of them.

The expression of the well-made bear appears not only in his beard;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his knees,
The curve of his belly, the volume of his chest.

This is my story: Mouth, tongue, lips, nose, eyes, ears,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, hips, inward and outward round,
Man-balls, man-root, strong set of thighs well carrying the trunk above.

To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, or more,
I linger to see his back, his ass, the hair on the back of his neck.
Examine these limbs–they shall be stript that you may see them.
I bear witness.

———-
* I'm sorry, but that's really, really a topic for another time. I do have some notes about it here someplace….

# More of the words are Whitman's than are mine, which you may find surprising. If you'd care to compare, here is the master's original.

Posted on April 9, 2008 at 23.26 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Writing

2 Responses

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  1. Written by chris
    on Thursday, 10 April 2008 at 07.55
    Permalink

    I even wrote a computer program (in FORTRAN, on punch cards!) in college (this is thirty years ago now)

    I've punched far too many cards in my time too. Of course, this was 1971-73

    with a fellow student to analyze feet in Greek poetry.

    of course, I read that as "Geek" poetry. funny the way yer brain short-circuits

  2. Written by Melanie
    on Thursday, 10 April 2008 at 13.28
    Permalink

    Great poem! I love the reworking of Whitman.
    And congrats on your story being included in the anthology!

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