“The Nakedness of Woman”

By March 5, a day after our deadline, the NLP team had produced 122 responses to our February 21 post (“Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre”) and its five new prompts, based on five infernal axioms from William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell.” The new poems surprised and delighted this reader, and the critical exchanges between poets matched an ineffable generosity of spirit with expert analyses.

The poem “Beginning with a Line by William Blake” by the possibly pseudonymous Greg Chaimtov (whose last name combines the Hebrew words for “to life” and “good”) impressed me with its daring use of rhyme. It begins by endorsing Blake’s line (“The nakedness of woman is the work of God”) and follows through, for the next seven lines, on the argument that instinctive desire defeats reason. But then, as if the rhymes drive the content of the poem, images of beauty (“a maple-red dawn, / the first flakes feathering fallen leaves”) ensue before giving way to an inevitable “but.” The poem boldly concludes by rejecting its own initial premise:

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
How else to explain the desire to worship desire?
To drop to your knees as if a power higher
than any you’ve known has fought
its way past the defenses Reason
built for you over those many years
you devoted to getting through one season
to the next without ending in tears
at fireflies kindling lawns, a maple-red dawn,
the first flakes feathering fallen leaves,
or a songbird nestled under the eaves?
But then, when you cannot rise and go on
as you had before, you wonder if, after all,
Blake, mad as he was, was simply wrong.

Michael C. Rush references Blake in his poem’s title, “Incapacity” (from Blake’s “Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity”). Blake’s tigers, naked women, bones of the dead, infants, and old maids all appear in the first three lines. But read further, and you’ll be stopped in your tracks by a remarkable conjunction of words: “I am so attracted to / the hitherto-unsuspected, to nuance unneutered / by logocentric eccentrics.”

Drive your tigers, your women naked in their stripes,
over the word-brindled bones of the dead, the murdered
infants and old maids. You will be allowed to see,
but not to have. You will be made to crave and be
rendered sick with desire, mad with need.

The use of inadequate language has permitted everything
that we have been permitted. Les deuxièmes meilleurs mots,
les mots presque justes. But I am so attracted to
the hitherto-unsuspected, to nuance unneutered
by logocentric eccentrics. The poem is designed to look
like a closed system, but it is exceedingly porous.
My poetry is from and is frame and is for.
I deploy my assets along the edge of the abyss.
If I spell it out for you, it’s not for your benefit
but because I like knowing how it is spelled.

Michael’s use of logocentric got a lot of attention, with Millicent Caliban, among others, declaring herself to be a “logocentric eccentric.” Maybe all writers are.

But the Critic of the Week Award goes to Emily, for her suggestion that Michael cut the first five lines of his poem. Michael liked the suggestion, but worried that “then it would no longer meet the prompt requirements!” Emily rejoined, “I know, but every poem deserves to be set free from its prompt at some point.” Brava, Emily. The value of the prompt is where it vaults you, and if the initial impetus for the poem is forgotten by then, so what?

Here’s the poem as edited by Emily:

The use of inadequate language has permitted everything
that we have been permitted. Les deuxièmes meilleurs mots,
les mots presque justes. But I am so attracted to
the hitherto-unsuspected, to nuance unneutered
by logocentric eccentrics. The poem is designed to look
like a closed system, but it is exceedingly porous.
My poetry is from and is frame and is for.
I deploy my assets along the edge of the abyss.
If I spell it out for you, it’s not for your benefit
but because I like knowing how it is spelled.

In either event, the last four lines are splendid. Michael also confides that he’d like to steal my phrase “infernal axioms.” I say, “Go for it.”

Meanwhile, Emily proffered a prose poem, “A Brief History of Splitting,”

William Blake believed the split between heaven and hell lay at the root of human suffering. The infant split the mother, according to Melanie Klein, into good and bad parts—the good mother offering milk, the bad one withdrawing it. Known as the paranoid-schizoid position, its delineation suggests its own solution, with Klein clarifying the fundamental goal of human development as the integration of good and bad. A split hoof is nevertheless one hoof that functions as hooves must. Donald Winnicott, weekly pediatric psychiatrist to abandoned children in World War II England, rejected the idea of the good mother completely in favor of the good enough mother. Can we forgive Winnicott for asking Charles Schultz if Schultz took the idea for Linus’s blanket from his own writings on transitional objects, merely because he elucidated the critical notion that a perfectly responsive mother would obviate a child’s mastery of need expression? If you’re buying my argument so far, we not only can, but must, tolerate the narcissist who, on occasion, occupies the empath. Marsha Linehan invented dialectical behavior therapy in the 1970s. Her core opposing claims were these: we must accept ourselves as we are while simultaneously striving for growth. DBT is now the gold standard for treatment of borderline personality disorder. The god of Judeo-Christian tradition can accordingly be construed as a borderline god, even though it says right there in the Old Testament that the evening and the morning were the first day (integration).

 The lack of lineation proved an obstacle for some of us, but I reveled in the joy the writer took in deploying scholarly language to reach a remarkable conclusion regarding DBT, which stands either for “dialectical behavior therapy” or (as Michael advocates) “diabolical behavior therapy.” My one suggestion: shorten the poem—if you cut the sentences from “A split hood” to “a child’s mastery of expression,” you get us a lot more quickly to your astonishing last sentence, and what do you lose?

 Paul Michelsen’s witty “Proverbs of Heck” won plaudits as well as the Max Beerbohm Award for Effective Parody:

The Magpies of Malarkey are kinder than the Octopii of Regret

The Orangutans of Seclusion are sexier than the Ladybugs of

Contemplation

The Crocodiles of Temperance are funnier than the Mice of Jubilation

The Bloodhounds of Prophecy are spryer than the Mandrills of

Orthodoxy

The Toucans of Technology are savvier than the Salamanders of

Judgment

The Jellyfish of Tomfoolery are luckier than the Antelopes of

Objectivity

The Ocelots of Wisdom are sneakier than the Frogs of Malice

The Zebras of Non-Duality are hungrier than the Mosquitos of

Hilarity

The Grasshoppers of Perplexity are lankier than the Goldfish of Lust

The Lycanthropes of Latitude are stuffier than the Slugs of Justice

The Jive Turkeys of Seduction are fluffier than the Night Owls of

Calamity

The Barnacles of Grace are tastier than the Water Buffalo of Bedrock

The Chameleons of Philanthropy are hornier than the Elk of

Escapism

The Sasquatches of Munificence are snazzier than The Peacocks of

Circumstance

The Labradoodles of Confusion are cuter than the Rottweilers of

Reason.

 The poem prompted Pamela Joyce Shapiro to imagine a dinner party at which Paul would exchange bons mots with Oscar Wilde, and Michael C. Rush’s review demonstrated that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: “The Parvenus of Poetry are more delightful than the Mandarins of Platitudes.”

When I read Millicent Caliban’s “On Separating Children from their Mothers,” I was all set to protest “bestride the world like a Colossus,” because it’s too familiar a quotation from Julius Caesar, but the rhyme with “the Caucasus” won me over, as did the appropriation of key phrases from Hamlet.

A Roman aristocrat, head of an army, was proud to serve the Empire.
He could bestride the world like a Colossus, from Britain to Persia

and the Caucasus.

Within his realm were men of many shades and all manner of beasts:

wild, strong, and fierce.

How noble in reason were his soldiers. As men, the paragon of

animals.
Fine horsemen, they, controlling their mounts with expert

instruction.

But the savage jungle beasts must be outsmarted.
How might they capture the tiger’s cubs to bring them back to Rome?
A flash of wit—throw before the mother a mirror wherein, distracted,

she thinks to see her precious babes, who lag behind to be

caught up in the net and caged.
They must suffer the irksome journey ending at the Colosseum; at sad

length, she bewails her painful loss.
One day, on the Emperor’s signal, they will be released into the great

ring to fight their captors’ slaves.

What spectacle is then produced by tigers’ wrath! They will be

avenged. Man is not the measure of all things

My one suggestion: end the poem with “What spectacle is then produced by tigers’ wrath!”—no need to lead the witness.

The first line of Charise Hoge’s “Wanting” provoked debate. Was it merely a rhetorical trick?

God is the work of nakedness of woman.

A piece of work, this god. Woman sheds

her corset, crinoline, bustle, chemise,

petticoat and drawers–so to soften god’s

vengeful manner. She cuts off her hair

and peels back her skin smooth as a grape.

She dissolves into pulp. Not even god

can find her. But wants to.

Linda Marie Hilton’s jubilant response, however, provoked smiles:

i would say that women created God so they

could be naked, since God exists that

supposedly keeps the men in line,

(that is if they listen to their mothers.)

 Emily anticipated my own suggestion, writing, “I would get rid of the first line altogether and just start with ‘A piece of work, this God.’ The poem progresses perfectly from there.”

Of all the Blake quotes I offered, the one that most defies credibility is, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires,” which makes persuasive sense only if infant, cradle, and nurse are considered attributes of a metaphor for “unacted desires.” Yet even this unpromising axiom spurred Angela Ball to allegory (“A woman already has    by proxy        under duress.”

I wish I had more room to give their due to the efforts of Diana Ferrari (“Maya”) and John Davis Jr. (“Memory of Gunther Gebel-Williams.”) I will, however, call attention to Pamela Joyce Shapiro’s real-time revisions: she improved her own “Of Blake and Bernini” by deleting her original last line. The result:

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Bernini perfected the nakedness of gods.

What God has made shrivels and fades, women bleed,
birth, and die, are made to feel ashamed for men’s desires.

But Bernini rendered Daphne’s flight immortal,
her struggle the triumph of transformation,

youth’s tender flesh becoming bark, her wisdom
rooted in the sustenance of earth. She is

evergreen, ever reaching, transcendent and alive.

Wielding my blue pencil, I’d go even further, omitting the second stanza and avoiding the grandeur of the last line as written. Here is the poem cut down to six lines:

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Bernini perfected the nakedness of gods,

but Bernini rendered Daphne’s flight immortal,
her struggle the triumph of transformation,

youth’s tender flesh becoming bark, her wisdom
rooted in the sustenance of earth.

This proposed revision does raise a vital question, though. Is the result a) merely a better or worse poem, or b) untrue to the writer’s intent altogether? How many of us can achieve enough distance from our writing to entertain the recommendation of such radical surgery? Thoughts on these questions are most welcome.

And here’s a brand-new prompt, the format of which I’ve never tried before. Write a coded dialogue poem, or exchange of messages, between a man and a woman. Use these three words—memory, dream, affair—twice each but replace all six with code words , such as a color, an object, a person. Limit: two stanzas, 14 lines total. Deadline: 10 days following the appearance of the post.