Men

Carol Ann Duffy is quickly turning out to be my latest favourite poet. I've been researching her poems for my students and while doing so, I came across almost all of her "World's Wife" poems, which are absolutely hilarious! In this particular collection of her's, she has presented the points of view of the wives of famous male personalities. (barring Elvis Presley, whose sister's point of view has been presented.)

And as a woman, sometimes, these stories just click so well and I can relate to them so perfectly. Today, when 3 women who are very close to me have narrated similar stories to me, just like the one in this poem, I feel the need to put it up.. Not only is this something that men often do and women often suffer, it is also a sentiment perfectly captured and subverted to achieve the right effect.

Pygmalion's Bride

Cold, I was, like snow, like ivory.

I thought He will not touch me,

But he did 

He kissed my stone-cool lips.

I lay still

As though I’d died.

He stayed.

He thumbed my marble eyes.

He spoke – 

Blunt endearments, what he’d do and how.

His words were terrible.

My ears were sculpture

Stone-deaf, shells.

I heard the sea.

I drowned him out.

I heard him shout.

He brought me presents, polished pebbles, 

little bells.

I didn’t blink,

Was dumb.

He brought me pearls and necklaces and rings.

He called them girly things.

He ran his clammy hands along my limbs.

I didn’t shrink,

Played statue, shtum.

He let his fingers sink into my flesh, 

He squeezed, he pressed.

I would not bruise.

He looked for marks, 

For purple hearts,

For inky stars, for smudgy clues.

His nails were claws.

I showed no scratch, no scrape, no scar.

He propped me up on pillows,

Jawed all night.

My heart was ice, was glass.

His voice was gravel, hoarse.

He talked white black. 

So I changed tack,

Grew warm, like candle wax,

Kissed back,

Was soft, was pliable, 

Began to moan,

Got hot, got wild,

Arched, coiled, writhed,

Begged for his child,

And at the climax

Screamed my head off – 

All an act

And haven’t seen him since.

Simple as that. 

For those who don't know who Pygmalion is, here is the wikipedia link for the story. I don't particularly want to dwell on the details of my friends' stories here. But suffice to say that three hearts were broken because of the hot-cold-hot-cold attitude that confused men often adopt. I wish men would understand that it's not okay to encourage a woman and then let her down by putting all the blame on her; that it's not okay to stop communicating out of the blue and then place the blame on the girl of actually saying the word "break up" out loud; that it's not okay to get into a relationship simply because you're lonely and then get out of it when you need space.

All relationships have to be worked at and they require efforts. If you don't want to put in the efforts but want the results, then it's never going to work out. And this advice goes out to everybody, irrespective of their gender.

Poems

My stint at Xavier's coming to an end soon, I applied for a job at a school, here in South Bombay. Luckily, I got selected after just one demo class. So, congratulations are in order once more. :)

So, come May, I will be an English Literature teacher at School B. And I'm pretty excited for this. The same prof, whom I'm covering for at Xavier's right now recommended me to the school and told me about the position available. Cool, eh? :)

Why Poems, you ask?

Because, for my demo class I was asked to do an unseen poem with the students. Thus, I got to researching, bringing out all my old poetry books et al. Finally, I selected I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou because Angelou is an important figure in literature and I wanted to introduce them to some African American literature. But during all that researching, I discovered and rediscovered some gems of poetry and wanted to share that with you all:

1. Refusal ~ Maya Angelou    

Beloved, In what other lives or lands Have I known your lips Your Hands Your Laughter brave Irreverent. Those sweet excesses that I do adore. What surety is there That we will meet again, On other worlds some Future time undated. I defy my body's haste. Without the promise Of one more sweet encounter I will not deign to die. It's just so beautiful a sentiment, so well-expressed and so touching! Most of us (well, girls, at least. I don't know about boys.) know how important it is to meet that one last time before saying good-bye. And that sentiment has been captured with such lovely and tragic imagery here. It's become one of my absolute favourites. And this is saying something because in general, I don't much like poetry as a medium.

2. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ~ W. B. Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 

I was discussing the previous poem with Moon when she remembered this one from our poetry class with Chhaya Mam from 5 years ago. I came back home and immediately googled it and got it back. Some poems just take your breath away with the lovely images that they paint for you and this is one of them.

3. We Real Cool ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

This was the second poem I did with the students during my demo class. I used it to show the students how two very different voices came from the African-American community during the same time in mid-20th century and how they brought out two completely different aspects of their way of life and their relation with the rest of the society. This one is so poignant and dark, it gave me goosebumps when I read it. And so, this one also goes in along with the other "favourite poems". 

There are a few more that I really like. Some poems by poets like e e cummings, Ogden Nash, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Eunice D'Souza, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats and sometimes even some Elizabethan (16th century) and Romantic (early 19th century) poets are included in the list of poems/ poets I like. I hope you liked these ones and that these names inspire you to go and research and read a few yourself. :)