[Mark McDonnell]

...the worst thing in the poetic world: poems that try to delve into Emily Dickinson's sex life, or, what is worse, imagine the narrator having sex with Emily Dickinson...I've never seen such a poem succeed. I can't imagine how one could write one that did.

Aaron N offered this (sort of) challenge on his 'The most cursed poetic genre' thread. I couldn't not rise to it. Whether I've risen very far is debatable. Yep, it's difficult.

Emily

I've been that freezing person, I've felt the snow,
and reached for you before the letting go.
I've sat beside you, telling you they're wrong,
that no bird sang such truth in such strange song.
I've felt the coolness of your kindly Death,
the heat beneath the weave, the catch of breath,
your dry lips touching mine — we both are flawed
and seek for cold perfection and won't be thawed.


Apologies for adding to the genre. I won't be attempting publication...

[Andrew Szilvasy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de3WWGCK4N0

[Aaron Novick]

Sorry for not responding to your PM sooner, but, yeah, I don't think you've redeemed the genre. There's interesting stuff here, but the sex is gratuitous—it adds nothing to the intellectual relationship you're developing here. It just makes the poem creepy.

FWIW I think Roger's "sex with Gerard" joke would've made for the basis of a better D&A thread.

[Andrew Szilvasy]

Originally Posted by Aaron Novick

FWIW I think Roger's "sex with Gerard" joke would've made for the basis of a better D&A thread.

Agree with this. It was a funny idea that could actually turn into a meaningful poem and I'm upset I wasn't clever enough to come up with the idea myself.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hey Aaron,

I do understand all the objections to this stuff and am more or less in agreement. I really don't think I've redeemed the genre either, but I wrote this as a little challenge, a 'drill' (rather than an 'amusement') hence its placement in this forum. It isn't something that would have occurred to me to write otherwise. Unlike what I'm sensing from you though, (and Andrew, given the video reaction) I don't necessarily see the attempt as something that should be seen as somehow taboo. I think a poem could potentially exist on this, or similar, theme that wouldn't be exploitative. One that imagined a more equal power relationship between the speaker and the subject and where the eroticism seemed somehow natural and inevitable. Or where the speaker is self-aware and there's an acknowledgement of the transgression, maybe. I realise this quick poem hasn't managed the genre's redemption.

And clearly others feel the same as you, and even more strongly. I have received a PM from a Spherean (won't say who, obviously) suggesting I should "feel no regret if you deleted your Emily piece, title and all, from the Sphere? It does you and the Sphere little credit." They then go on, strangely to me, to say it might be "right at home on New Verse News or Asses of Parnassus."

I've changed the thread title from 'Sex with Emily' to something less flippant.

I wonder how Billy Collins got away with it?

Edit: changed 'your skirts' to 'the weave' to mitigate the creepiness, maybe. Basically, if someone says a subject can't be written about, I'll try to have a go and happily fail.

[Andrew Szilvasy]

Mark,

I mean, no one is going to throw anyone in jail for the attempt.

But I do think writing a poem about seducing a woman dead for over a century who actively was uninterested in men is weird and problematic. Particularly a poem written by a man.

There are a number of topics I don't think can, or really should, be written about. Anyone not trying to be knee-jerk contrarian could come up with a list with little time or effort.

Did Billy Collins get away with it? I mean, in the sense that anyone and everyone is allowed to freely write on topics like this, sure. He's not in jail. But it's a weird and shitty poem that probably wouldn't have gotten published if he weren't Billy Collins. So, yay for him and the pobiz?

[Matt Q]

So, rather non-controversially, I went with this:

Wearily Emily
(albeit imaginary)
fends off advances from
verse-writing boors,

tells them they’re dwelling in
impossibility,
pushes them out of her
numerous doors.

but then I realised that close is open to being read as double entendre, rather than just a reference to her poem, so I tried again.

Wearily Emily
(albeit imaginary)
fends off advances from
undersexed bards,

bored as these fantasist
phalloventriloquists
pull at their pen nibs and
try to get hard.

but now the end is probably too much of a single entendre. Oh well.

(typo, "of" - > "off", thanks Ralph).