imagiste, flowers, flowers, flowers: on HD
I have a serious love/hate response to HD. Upon first read, several years ago, I loved her. I even named my cat after Tribute to the Angels (Lady, after the composite character of goddesses). I found her edgy, powerfully feminine, subtly suggestive. I still think these things, but, having been exposed to more poetry that is also this way, I am nearly exhausted that with HD between the edgy, feminine, & suggestive, there are so many damn flowers. I just don't think in terms of flowers.
But, yes, I must admit that GARDEN is a really truly fantastically kick-assilly written poem. (How's that for a formal critique? Perhaps here I'll only look at the first section of the poem because I may have much to say).
Garden being of course the Garden of Eden, as suggestive of purity, of prelapsarian, but also as the setting for the first sin. Duplicities/heavy metaphor are precisely what makes this poem work throughout. Second line: rose, cut in rock. Where rose, the transient, short-lived, now a permanent fixture in rock. Where we see later rose as a euphemism for female genetalia that is is fixed in rock may make a statement for the enduring enticement of females as sexual figures, or that the sins of sexuality, the first sin (the rose as a product of the garden) has lasted. hard as the descent of hail. where hail can be read perhaps as ejaculation, where the rose, being as hard as the hail, has equal sexual power/prowess. Sexual power is even further asserted in the next two stanzas. Scrape the color from the petals like spilt dye. Color from the rose read as bleeding after the loss of virginity, as she break(s) the tree. Break is here another of those great duplicites, as it could mean a rather violent breaking or hurting, but also a taming, where male (tree, duh) is tamed by female (rose).
But then it gets more complicated. If I could stir. The female is not sure she would have the agency to pull this off. She is iffy, lacks confidence. Or stir could be read instead as "arroused." As in the virgin contemplating even if she'd like sex, if it would be all its cracked up to be. She ends this section in a reassertion that no, she could do it, the tree would be broken, the man would be broken.
But, yes, I must admit that GARDEN is a really truly fantastically kick-assilly written poem. (How's that for a formal critique? Perhaps here I'll only look at the first section of the poem because I may have much to say).
Garden being of course the Garden of Eden, as suggestive of purity, of prelapsarian, but also as the setting for the first sin. Duplicities/heavy metaphor are precisely what makes this poem work throughout. Second line: rose, cut in rock. Where rose, the transient, short-lived, now a permanent fixture in rock. Where we see later rose as a euphemism for female genetalia that is is fixed in rock may make a statement for the enduring enticement of females as sexual figures, or that the sins of sexuality, the first sin (the rose as a product of the garden) has lasted. hard as the descent of hail. where hail can be read perhaps as ejaculation, where the rose, being as hard as the hail, has equal sexual power/prowess. Sexual power is even further asserted in the next two stanzas. Scrape the color from the petals like spilt dye. Color from the rose read as bleeding after the loss of virginity, as she break(s) the tree. Break is here another of those great duplicites, as it could mean a rather violent breaking or hurting, but also a taming, where male (tree, duh) is tamed by female (rose).
But then it gets more complicated. If I could stir. The female is not sure she would have the agency to pull this off. She is iffy, lacks confidence. Or stir could be read instead as "arroused." As in the virgin contemplating even if she'd like sex, if it would be all its cracked up to be. She ends this section in a reassertion that no, she could do it, the tree would be broken, the man would be broken.
posted by Sean & Jennifer at 19:11
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home