Gratitude and Permission
Dorianne Laux
I re-read Talk Dirty To Me recently for a graduate seminar I taught for the first time called “The Poetry of Sex and Death.” When I did my initial research for the class I was amazed at how little has been written about sexuality, and, of those few books, how few are good enough to assign in whole to a class. My students loved the book. I own the original hardback text, while the students most often ended up with re-printed paperback copies. We noticed that the newer paperbacks have retained the gorgeous black-and-white photograph by Anthony Loew of a woman’s hand holding out a peach. As I remember, the hardback book originally came sheathed in a discreet black box, something I must have misplaced long ago. All that remains is the book itself which, we noticed, did not bear the enticing title. The students asked me why and I couldn’t say. Someone looked up the date of publication, 1994, and they were stumped. Could the times have been so prudish just 10 short years ago that the book’s title and image had to be hidden in a “plain brown wrapper”? Probably, I supposed. We really haven’t come so far. They went away that afternoon curious and confused.
The following week one student who had found a used copy with the original cover admitted that she was glad her version didn’t have the title, since she found herself oddly embarrassed to be reading the book in a public café, let alone revealing to the world that the book was called Talk Dirty To Me. Another student said she was “huffed at” by the university librarian when she asked if they had the title in the stacks. I think they were surprised to discover how difficult it was to talk and write openly about sex. After all, they are the generation brought up on MTV and soft-core porn, condom commercials and the birth-control patch. They had no idea how inhibited they were until they began reading Tisdale’s book. Over the term her work gave them permission to loosen up. It was a joy to listen to their discussions of the week’s readings, including the favorite poems and stories each student had brought in to class, works and authors ranging from the “Song of Songs” and Sappho to Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds. They also took turns reading what they had written each week, becoming more honest and more daring as the term progressed. Soon, no subject was out of bounds, and there was a sense of freedom in the air, not the usual feeling in an academic class. This is gratitude, then, to Sallie Tisdale, for opening up the conversation, giving the silenced permission to speak, and to Isotope for keeping it going.
Twelve
Deep in the canyon, under the red branches
of a manzanita, we turned the pages
slowly, seriously, as if it were a holy text,
just as the summer before we had turned
the dark undersides of rocks to interrupt
the lives of ants, or a black stinkbug
and her hard-backed brood.
And because the boys always came,
even though they weren’t invited, we never
said anything, except Brenda, who whispered
Turn the page when she thought we’d seen enough.
This went on for weeks one summer, a few of us
meeting at the canyon rim at noon, the glossy
magazine fluttering at the tips of our fingers.
Brenda led the way down, and the others
stumbled after blindly, Martin
always with his little brother
hanging off the pocket of his jeans, a blue
pacifier stuck like candy in his mouth.
Every time he yawned the wet nipple
fell out into the dirt, and Martin, the good brother,
would pick it up, dust it with the underside
of his shirt, then slip it into his own mouth
and suck it clean. And when the turning
of the pages began, ceremoniously, exposing
thigh after thigh, breast after beautiful,
terrible breast, Martin leaned to one side,
and slid the soft palm of his hand
over his baby brother’s eyes.
Responses from:
Tim Birkhead | Paisley Rekdal | Bruce Begemihl | Melanie Domenech Rodriguez | Dorianne Laux | David Shields | Gary Paul Nabhan