Tag literature

* baring it all with Dorianne Laux

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

So: remember all that paper that was under my desk two weeks ago that I cleared out just last week?

Well, now there’ s this:

* here there be manuscripts *

* here there be manuscripts *

I handed this over to Ani earlier this week.

I’ve been busy working on a few different projects since school let out, hermitted away at my desk, coming away excited each night, talking her ear off about this concept or that change.  It’s a terrifying stack: the soul in a ream of paper.

This week’s poem by Dorianne Laux deals with all manner of nakedness.  What stands out is how the nakedness pointed out by the poet is the nakedness that is apparent in a straightforward sense, something of the inner being exposed through the particulars of its outer being.

Sharing the stack of papers visually – and literally, with a reader – carries with it similar feelings of nakedness.

The Nakedness of Things – Dorianne Laux *

There is nothing more naked
than a cactus, its green skin
exposed, the enlarged
pores from which each
spiny hair sprouts. Nothing
so naked as a wave
lifting its frothy dress
to show off one glassy
blue thigh. The pliers
spreads its legs, sheathed
in red rubber stockings,
displays its shiny
metal crotch, cold
to the touch. A dab
of kerosene behind
an ear of glowing coal
and it splays open, twisting
in a pit, like the frayed
wilderness of sex. Nothing
naked as the rain, dragging
its fingers over
the mountain’s bare
breasts or music
undressing itself
in the air. Look,
it’s everywhere, the world
undone, naked
as the day it was born.

*

Happy nakeding!

Jose

* (originally published in Raleigh Review)

* the mess we’re in & Alden Nowlan

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

It’s the last week of classes here at UC.  I can read the strain on my students’ faces.  I, personally, am not at all stressed.

* here there be monsters *

* here there be monsters *

The above is what it looks like under my desk presently.  What in August was a slight stack of scratch paper has, uhm, well…scratched into more.  Is there yeast in paper?  That’s besides the point.

Mind you, the above may not look like much but I’m a Virgo and OHMYGODTHERE’SPAPERSONTHEFLOORI’MTHEWORSTPERSONEVER!

Ahem.

Seriously, I’m doing ok.  Only one major paper left to do.  I am making it my goal, dear readers, to have both the paper done and my desk area clean by this time next week.  I’ll keep you posted.

For now, please enjoy the fine sentiment of the following poem by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan.

What moves me most in it is the surprise made possible through the control of dialogue.  It seems deceptively simple, but this poem carries a lot of nuance as well as heart.

***

It’s Good to be Here – Alden Nowlan

I’m in trouble, she said
to him.  That was the first
time in history that anyone
had ever spoken of me.

It was 1932 when she
was just fourteen years old
and men like him
worked all day for
one stinking dollar.

There’s quinine, she said.
That’s bullshit, he told her.

Then she cried and then
for a long time neither of them
said anything at all and then
their voices kept rising until
they were screaming at each other
and then there was another long silence and then
they began to talk very quietly and at last he said
well, I guess we’ll just have to make the best of it.

While I lay curled up,
my heart beating,
in the darkness inside her.

***

Happy ignoring what the floor looks like for another week!

Jose