Dirty Girl Things
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Two-Hundred-Six
Erotic Haiku
by Colin B Liddell
his three minute penis her two hour vagina - Gertrude Morris
Say ‘erotic poetry’ and most of us instantly think of a dirty limerick or two. For a few of the better educated, some lines of a saucy Shakespearian sonnet may pop into our memory. But, essentially, poetry is an art form little represented in eroticism, which has traditionally been better served by the more explicit forms of culture i the steamy novel or anything visual. This is a pity because erotic poetry, used in the right way, can be a lot more potent than you might imagine.
The best eroticism subtly melds the external and the internal, bringing together our own experiences with new stimuli. The more explicit the eroticism, the more passive and unreal the experience often is. To work at its peak, eroticism has to find some way of writing us into the story, something that may be difficult with a video of a bronzed beefcake and a pneumatic blonde going at it hammer and tongs, unless (a) we happen to be one of the former, and (b) are happy to associate ourselves with the roles presented.
Often the best eroticism is that which does the least to achieve the most i the feather instead of the whole chicken, as one wit described it. What this calls for is something that makes use of the visuals, memories, and fantasies already in our own heads, something that sets our imaginations in motion.
A major source of the power of poetry is its ability to evoke. This is where the haiku, a short Japanese form of poetry, comes into its own. Rejecting the long windedness of other poetic forms, it focuses on the telling detail, and, in a sense, tries to paint a vivid picture with a single brushstroke. By being so short, it forces the poet to get to the point.
Interestingly, it is a form of poetry that has been utilized for erotic expression much more by foreigners than the Japaneseiwho feel too much reverence for the formias revealed in Erotic Haiku, a collection of poems edited by Hiroaki Sato, a Japanese writer living in New York.
‘Haiku in English are free, with few constraints,’ he explains. ‘In Japan, even though “free-rhythm” haiku were written as early as in Basho’s days (Matsuo Basho, the seventeenth-century father of the classical haiku), the overwhelming sense is that haiku is a one-line 5-7-5-syllable form with a seasonal indicator.’
Unconstrained by respect for what is after all an alien tradition, English writers have turned haiku’s power of capturing a sudden mood or feeling to good effect, creating keys to unlock our erotic imaginations:
pushing
inside until
her teeth shine - Michael McClintock
without clothes
it’s a different
conversation - John Brandi
Like most erotic haiku, these examples are deceptively simple. But this simplicity, this economy is a source of strength, as we are invited to reactivate our own sexual memories and imaginations. Perhaps McClintock’s poem helps us to half recall an instance when ‘it’ wouldn’t quite fit at first, but, when it did, her face lit up in a smile of pleasure. Brandi’s poem captures the tension of dates, when we strive to say the correct thing, but, having achieved our goal, talk and behave more freely.
Skillfully selected details, insignificant in themselves, become seeds which sprout into full-blown visions:
she leaves i
a curled hair
in my soap - David Walker
a tattooed butterfly
shivering
on her buttocks - Dejan Bogojevic
While some haiku like these make you concentrate on visual images, seeing first the detail and then the woman, others make you think. A good example is a haiku by the Illinois poet Lee Gurga. At first glance the image presented seems baffling as well as vaguely unpleasant:
old lovers
only her left nipple
becomes erect
Then you realize why he specifies the left nipple: it is the one over the heart, signifying that although eroticism has declined, in this case, at least, it has left love behind.
* * * * *
Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
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