A Conversation on Obscenity in Poetry

            So, things are going wonderfully at college -- as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this after a brief but fascinating 2:30 AM discussion about the nature of poetic expression with my floor mate AJ. The subject of said discussion was the following poem, published in the Columbia Review (a student-run literary magazine):

"Foxtrot Frames"

all the spoons bent

'by a poltergeist'

--

Jason sowed his babyteeth

in manure

--

massage my calves

you plumper hands

--

where has he went

to the wrinkled comic covers

--

Roger ran into the wrong

bed and fucked his daughter

--

stemmed          grapefruit

halves

--

segmented

plucked, swallow swallow

--

sugared mornings marriages

and machoiatos

--

crooked nose you hawker

you lecher Peter with vegetable fingers

--

you mossy wolf buried in the flower bed

and come and come again

            Aside from the fact that both he and I thought the poem was total nonsense, I argued that the poem was poorly written because poetry is meant to elevate our capacity to produce and understand language to its highest level, and that this poem fails to do that because it resorts to obscenity (the basest form of communication--well, maybe a level or two above grunting and screeching) in the fifth stanza. 

            However, he countered with the idea that we should never limit ourselves in poetry, because the f-word is precisely chosen to make you feel the dirtiness of Roger's act. Indeed, it does make you feel gross reading it. I then argued that if you can't express your meaning without that word, you need to somehow restructure what you're trying to say or how you're trying to say it. (After all, I'm sure you can paint vivid pictures of tremendously dirty acts without resorting to obscenity.)

            But then I realized that we were operating on different assumptions. I was assuming that swear words are off-limits because they are, in some way, less artistic than ordinary words. But he was assuming (and stated explicitly) that we should never limit ourselves in poetry (or art in general), as the f-word (and other swear words) has very rich and specific connotations that would be inaccessible if we were to deem that word "out of bounds." I then said that using the f-word in poetry is like using feces instead of paint to create a portrait, and then he questioned why we shouldn't use feces in painting.

            Anyway, I was just curious about your opinion on this poem, and on this debate. Are some words off-limits in poetry?

            Also, I wanted to thank you once more for being such an awesome teacher. One of the Core Curriculum classes I'm taking this year--Literature Humanities--is entirely discussion-based, but our professor is super lenient with the idea of supporting your claims with the text. For instance, the other day, a girl in my class suggested that Homer included so many death scenes in the Iliad to show how war and repeated death can desensitize you to the significance of death, and her evidence was essentially that "you get tired of reading all these death scenes." Granted, we have little time to break down every single claim made about the text, but it just reminded me of how well AP English 12 prepared me for extracting meaning from the text and basing it on actual evidence. It'll definitely come in handy over the next four years, to say the least. So, thanks so much!

My response is below, minus some social niceties: 

        Appropriate that this came when it did; we’re introducing our study of poetry in AP right now. I’m starting to appreciate more deeply the cycle of teaching and returning yearly to some of the same ideas; it functions as a kind of intellectual liturgy to my year. So, now is the time of year when I am reminded of and refreshed in what poetry should be and do. Helen Vendler, professor at Harvard and perhaps the best reader of poetry alive today (Bloom would bristle at that, but his fascination with Freud clouds his view of the text at times), describes poetry as that which requires imagination and mastery of language, and that poets are those who have the “gift of conveying to the reader the world as they have seen it.”

            In that case, then, the function of language is to be used well—with precision, directness, clarity, and grace, but also to be used rightly—in service to a true and full vision of the imagination. Of course, the world “as they have seen it,” may not be the world as it is, and this is right to critique as a reader. (Though, part of the truth is that we don’t see or desire it as we ought, so even a work that presents a faulty worldview indicates the truth that our hearts are darkened.) So, a poem could fail or be flawed either in its vision of the true or in the use of language to share that vision (or both).

            For a more classical take, I like to remember the well-crafted (pukinos) bed from The Odyssey. The idea of beauty there has to do with fittedness and integratedness—all the parts fit together as they ought to make a unified whole. I think we talked about this some in relation to Hamlet, regarding how disorder in the parts disrupts the whole. That which is beautiful has all its parts in right relationship—thus a beautiful melody, face, scene, idea, geometric proof, or sentence. So then, beauty and truth are fully entwined and inseparable. Thomas Howard talks of the bawdy or grotesque as having its place in literature: “There is this to be said of bawdy. When it occurs in serious literature, it occurs as a foil; that is, it appears in conscious and grinning contrast to whatever the serious theme may be” (Chance or the Dance). While he speaks here of a kind of humorous juxtaposition between the vulgar and the serious, the same comparison seems to apply to the role of seeing the evil or the obscene not to titillate, but to juxtapose the beauty of the true and the good.

            (Howard cites Chaucer and Shakespeare as examples of texts that use bawdy language, and you’ll perhaps remember that in the General Prologue, Chaucer defends his use of vulgar language:

            Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,
            He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan
            Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
            Al speke he never so rudeliche and large,
            Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe,
            Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe.
            He may nat spare, althogh he were his brother;
            He moot as wel seye o word as another.
            Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ,
            And wel ye woot no vileynye is it.
            Eek Plato seith, whoso that kan hym rede,
            The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede.) 

            Coming back around to your assertion that “poetry is meant to elevate our capacity to produce and understand language to its highest level,” I think poetry can do this, but the telos of language is more than simply beauty or whatever one might assert opposes obscenity. Poetry does require a mastery of language, but the master uses it for the communication and sharing of a vision that makes more vivid the real and the true. The question then, isn’t (merely?) what to do when the language isn’t beautiful, but what to do when the vision or experience isn’t beautiful. Sometimes the vision and experience of our fallen nature and distorted world are vile and obscene and we should be offended, and the mastery of language will mean expressing that in the way that fittingly conveys the truest vision of it, which may be obscene language.

         So, I don’t think that any particular words are necessarily off-limits. In general, rather than boundaries or “off-limits” spaces (whether in poetry or sanctification), it’s helpful to think in terms of direction. Toward what end is this language being used? Does it direct us toward a more true vision of the human condition or Truth, or is it used to mask truth or to titillate? In the poem you included, which I’m sure I don’t entirely understand, the images show a broken world, but it seems more of an attempt to be edgy or showy or almost exhibitionist, and certainly trying to be postmodern and sophisticated. That said, I can’t think of a painting that uses fecal matter that I’d like to see at the National Gallery this weekend, but it is a good image for describing my self-righteousness. I also tried to think of a poem that uses the f-word that I might consider excellent, and I couldn’t think of any examples there either. However, I think it might have more to do with it becoming trite by being overused in common language rather than because it’s on the don’t-say-in-polite-company list.  I also can’t think of an excellent poem that uses the word “nice.”

        I do have some essays (written by others, mind you) on aesthetics and Christianity that may be of interest. I’ll send them your way.

        Delighted to hear of your appreciation for concern about the text, and so glad to have been able to pass that along. The Iliad example is quite unfortunate, as there is so much to ask about if she’ll push past her own personal experience a bit. Very amused by “you get tired” as a reading. Perhaps Homer’s argument is that battle scenes are good for insomniacs? In more seriousness, Simone Weil has an essay on The Iliad you could read here if interested: http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/WeilTheIliad.pdf