Towards Living in February- the rejection of fear & harm in poetry
"Walt Whitman / you cannot know / how a live oak feels / much less a woman / or anyone sold". On displacing marginalization in poetry, in conversation with literary canon and being a writer today.
All of these poems are connected by their strong willed and inquisitive language, and their general loveliness. I’ve been trying to put them all in a doc for myself to re-read, and so for February here’s a bit of what I’ve cobbled together as of now. The starting poem of this newsletter was in the first copy of Tin House I ever bought (while in my childhood bookstore in San Francisco) and it completely stunned me. I didn’t know what Tin House was at the time, but I very quickly loved it with this as a first impression.
It’s in conversation with literary canon— more specifically, in direct and literal conversation with Walt Whitman. But also simultaneously in conversation with other writers who play on similar dynamics today— like Oscar Wilde, who wrote against slavery yet supported his slave-owning uncle and (to some degree) the Confederate cause (as according to Prof. Michèle Mendelssohn at Oxford). When embracing the literary canon that informs us and our writing, poems such as these help the understanding that we don’t have to accept bigotry as an inherent quality to great works— despite what many institutions teach. While these writers may have been ‘of their time’, marginalized people have always had the same apparent and innate humanity. I also thought that this poem was so interesting as Whitman’s (and also Wilde’s) sexuality has made it easy to look to him as a writer that reflected on marginalization, rather than a writer who perpetuated it.
While these writers may have been ‘of their time’, marginalized people have always had the same apparent and innate humanity. Whitman’s sexuality has made it easy to look to him as a writer that reflected on marginalization, rather than a writer who perpetuated it.
Matthew Zapruder’s poem is such a clear indictment of this, and despite having read it for the first time years ago, I still think about it today, to the point where I had to include it.
Walt Whitman / you cannot know / how a live oak feels / much less a woman / or anyone sold
This one is so good, I’m putting a longer excerpt here (in two parts, go read the rest & the process essay). I’m not going to put all of it (though I’m tempted) because I’m pretty sure that qualifies as republishing, and that is def not what I have rights for.
Poem for Harm Walt Whitman you cannot know how a live oak feels much less a woman or anyone sold does it help to think that way to wander into everyone’s experience with love you told yourself and therefore believed was innocent to break off a twig and bring it back to your room then write by its harmless light Walt Whitman you are still my favorite poet sometimes but what poison can you drink and live is the question I ask in the few moments I have before my son lying in bed singing about feeling like a volcano slams open the door and demands of everyone to be loved
The beauty in this poem is really within its ‘subjectiveness’, the way in which Zapruder rejects impersonal or ‘objective’ criticism that is so often prized by white institutions to work towards the humanity in both loving Whitman’s work and knowing what it lacks.
Matthew Zapruder’s website is here. Please go read more of his work!
The next is from a longer piece, but I feel stands on its own:
I carried my fear of the world / the way an animal carries a kill in its jaws / but in reverse: I was the kill, the gift. / Whose feet would I be left at?
I carried my fear of the world / as if it could protect me from the world.
This specific excerpt from it is something I’ve adored for a while. And of course, it’s Maggie Smith. Isn’t it always Maggie Smith?
Fear as a protective source is such a valuable reframe of experiences with it. I can’t remember who said it, but there was some quote to the tune of ‘there is no part of your body that doesn’t want to help you’— so all our experiences with our nervous system, whether enjoyable or not, mean us well. This poem is exemplary of that while understanding the negative effects of these experiences. In a world in which we are marginalized (especially as women), how does living in complete fear serve us? Hiding from the world is, after all, the outcome that these systems want from us.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of visibility, how women are perceived and what that means for my career. I remember my first ever interview coming out and being struck by a wave of dread at the thought of people being able to read it, or seeing my tweets whenever I post, or looking at any of my social media. At the time, my mom asked me, “How are you going to be a writer if you don’t like people reading about you or your work?”
Of course, she was right, but it doesn’t necessarily fix anything. The quote “well-behaved women rarely make history,” was always a tragedy to me. Namely because the ‘well-behaved woman’ was always invisible— and we punish whoever is even noticeable in almost imperceptible ways until the boiling point. Time and time again, we see ‘overexposure’ happen to women who exist in the public eye too long. Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, and most concerningly Anne Hathaway— who was ardently hated because she cared about hosting the Oscars, or she was ‘too perfect’, or ‘too earnest’. Earnestness being something I’m most natural at, rather than the more trendy cynicism or ‘edgy’ affect that goes around (and there’s a lot of interesting commentary on how being working class & elitism ties into that, but that’s a different conversation entirely. It’s always people from private school, or those who just suffer from plain (white) middle class liberal dread— and it is obnoxiously loud and culturally dominant. I could write at least ten pages on this, and I’m strongly tempted.)
There’s a difference between protection and living in fear, and this poem is a beautiful exploration of the latter. Anyway, thank you Maggie Smith (for the poem, for existing, etc). Having such wonderful female writers to look up to is so important, and I’ve started making a list of every woman regardless of profession that I admire. Highly recommend it (and make sure to start with Carrie Fisher).
In a world in which we are marginalized as women, how does living in complete fear serve us? Hiding from the world is, after all, the outcome that these systems want from us.
Then there is, of course, the iconic poem:
Still I Rise (Yes, you already know it, but I’m including it anyway)
You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes, / You may kill me with your hatefulness, / But still, like air, I’ll rise.
…
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, / I am the dream and the hope of the slave. / I rise / I rise / I rise.
Very fitting of her to capture the essence of what all these poems are, in some way, saying. It stands on its own— I won’t pretend that what I have to say about the poem would add to it in any way. But notably, unlike in the other poems, she is the conversation, refusing to consider outside narrative in celebration of joy. Here’s her famous reading of it, for bonus points.
Fun fact: she was San Francisco's first black streetcar conductor! Part of my hometown’s history, lucky for me.
Anyway, hopefully there will be a follow-up to this soon as I find more to match this collection. But for now, these are what I’m reading & thinking about for the start of February. Hope you’re all doing well!