Sappho Redefined

There was an island off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea whose inhabitants were noted for their sensuality and love for poetry. Now known as Mytilene, it used to be called the Island of Lesbos; its people -- men, women, and children -- were then referred to as Lesbians. The most famous of them all was the lyric poet Sappho, who, in 600 B.C., became as distinguished and as highly-esteemed as Homer.

Now, whether Sappho was gay or just a victim of those nasty rumor-mongering people of Lesbos Island (who are Lesbians themselves!), that is none of my business. My main concern is Sappho's contribution to literature; her outstanding, outspoken, and flawless poetry; her deep knowledge and understanding of femininity; her wisdom...

I believe Sappho of Lesbos is one of the most misunderstood writers, because the average-minded human species would rather associate her with homosexuality than with fine, sensible poetry. I believe that when Sappho penned those impeccable lyric poems, she was not parading her sexual preference; rather, she was baring her soul; she was trying to make sense of her insane world; she was trying to get her message across.

Fact is, not all of the handful of Sappho's poems that have survived to this day deal with her rumored flair for young girls. The poem that I'm posting here is my favorite Sappho poem:

To An Uncultured Lesbian Woman

by Sappho

Yea, thou shalt die,

And lie

Dumb in the silent tomb,

Nor of thy name

Shall there be any Fame

In ages yet to be or years to come:

For of the flowering Rose

Which on Pieria blows,

Thou hast no share:

But in sad Hades' house,

Unknown, inglorious

'Mid the dim shades that wander there

Shalt thou flit forth and haunt the filmy air.

Thirteen powerful lines of admonition. That's it. Then, you stop and ask yourself: How many women (and men as well) reflect on the meaning of their existence? How many of us have etched our contribution on life's Book of Fame?

I believe Sappho, gay or not, is, first and foremost an existentialist. One ought to "really" read her very few surviving poems to see the real Sappho: a woman of substance, not your average Lesbian woman.

An Argument as Hot as Summer Solstice

Any intelligent reader who has encountered Nick Joaquin's short story, Summer Solstice, would agree that this work of fiction does not belong to the period when it was written. It scandalized the conservative Filipino readers of the early 20th century, the way Thomas Hardy's Tess of D'Urberville and Jude the Obscure rocked Queen Victoria's boat. But, look, Summer Solstice is, to this day, part of almost all basic texts in Philippine Literature used in the secondary and tertiary levels.

Why should poems about women, sexuality, and gender discrimination be any different from Joaquin's Summer Solstice? When will our society, particularly educational institutions that claim to be Christians, be mature enough for works of literature that advocate gender equality and educate the readers on female sexuality with the use of vivid, provocative diction?

My esteemed colleagues are asking: "Do you think the school community is ready for this kind of poetry?"

My answer: "Are you mature enough to deal with 'this kind of poetry'?"

My dears, this is not a question of whether we are ready or not to accept what you call "erotic" poetry, because whether you people are ready or not, contemporary writers who dare to exploit the power the language will continue to write feminist and even sexually-oriented poetry! This is a question, then, of whether we have matured as readers or if we are still categorized as infantile readers not equipped with higher-order thinking skills.

A critical reader would know after "really" reading a poem if it makes a serious commentary or if it's plainly "erotic," meaning written for pure self-expression. Problem is, not all readers are "actually" reading. More often than not, some of us read on the surface and stop at the word level. It's about time we learn how to really read, un-learn those biases against the author, and re-learn how to read critically. Read E.E. Cummings' "she being brand" and William Shakespeare's "Winter" and "Spring" and see for yourself how two different poets dare to play with words in an erotic poetry and not "scandalize" an illiterate reader. I believe you are literate, otherwise, you wouldn't go on reading this blog entry.

Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, aptly brands these people as illiterates of the 21st century. Toffler claims that the illiterates of the 21st century are not those who couldn't read and write, but those who "can't learn, un-learn, and re-learn."

There. No wonder, we have illiterates with Ph.D., M.A., etc.

Ars Erotica (Art of Erotic Poetry) and Authorial Intent

Imagine reading this poem from a literary folio published by a Catholic school student publication:

Come, Man-child, Come!

Come, man-child, come!
Come closer, look deeper.
Ignore my inadequate bosom, my enormous hips;
Forget about the torn veil of chastity and its
Promise of orgasmic bliss.
Look at me and see in me the Woman
Who nourished you with her soggy breasts.
Mine are still firm and plump and erect.
Feel them. Suck them like you sucked your Mother's
Back in the days when your universe was just
A Pair of Nipples Overflowing with Maternal Kindness.
Know that I, too, am Masculine:
Provider. Preserver. Protector.
Penetrate me with the force you spend
When you thrust the nail into hardwood
And know that I, too, am
Tough. Strong. Virile.
Go into me deeper, deeper, deeper...
'Til you reach my abyss:
Your Climax; your Peak!
And when you get there don't drift away;
Don't conclude the moment in haste with your clumsy
Ejaculation!
Stay with me and wait for me to Come, too!
Be just.
Be considerate.
Be a Man.
Take time to fathom the depth of the womb
Which molded you and nurtured you
And excites you and delights you
Which you enter and re-enter
And know not yet!

I am a professor at a Catholic school... I wrote this poem about seven years ago to express my feminist sentiments.

Trouble came when the literary staff of the school paper's literary folio deemed this poem worthy of publication and approved its printing and circulation in March 2008. When the folio came out of the press last month, I was admonished by my immediate superior for writing such a "pornographic" piece of filth. Some of my colleagues thought the poem is too sleazy and is reflective of the author's moral state.

I remember a poet from Brooklyn named Walt Whitman, whose poems were considered trash. I remember e.e. cummings' "she being brand" and "i love my body when it is with your." I remember the Song of Songs, the Holy Book's contribution to erotica. I remember the summer of 2002, when I was chosen as one of the ten aspiring writers/poets from all over the country to represent my home city at a national creative writing workshop. This "condemned piece of filth" was my ticket to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This was, and still is, one of my most well-written poems.

Palanca award-winning novelist, Mr. Vince Groyon called this poem "a song of complaint" of misunderstood women who are being "used" as sex objects. Eurasian author of the novel Crocodile Fury, Elizabeth Yahp said that she would never change a word in it, as it already sounds perfect to her. Professor and poet Dr. Marjorie Evasco of De La Salle University finds this poem's diction artistically provocative when she registered that the line, "A Pair of Nipples Overflowing with Maternal Kindness" tickled her pink.

National Artist and multi-awarded poet/writer Dr. Cirilo F. Bautista calls poetry a "linguistic daring." In other words, the poet must dare explore the power of words and must harness this power to deliver his/her social commentary and express his/her observations of life in the real world, as well as to effect change.

I do not write poetry to describe the beautiful world, with all its birds and flowers and bees. I do not write poetry to sugar-coat realities. I write poetry to describe what traditional poets (who love to rhyme) would rather ignore. I write poetry to unmask the real world, where women are discriminated against, where poverty dehumanizes, where hypocrisy is second nature to man.

And now, I have fallen victim to this hypocrisy. Those who do not have what we call the "poetic insight" would, naturally, fail to go beyond the word or diction of this poem in question. I am not responsible for their ignorance. They fail to see the authorial intent, the meaning I would have wanted them to see. On the surface, this poem may scandalize the average church-going, Bible-reading individual. Then, I dare say, this same Bible-reading church-goer MUST read the Song of Songs and judge King Solomon by his "lustful" words!

To be or Not to be... Poetically-challenged

Poetically-challenged.

Whether I just coined a recent addition to the dynamic vocabulary of political correctness or someone somewhere has invented this phraseology, that is not important. There is a more important issue concerning people -- some of them are even English professors who teach literature where I teach-- who are poetically challenged.

If you were a professor teaching at a Catholic university or college and you encounter a poem which contains words like nipples, ejaculation, "come," penetrate, and other "sexual" words, what would you do?

(a) Read the poem analytically, interpret it in its entirety and in the context of literary criticism (feminist, Marxist,etc.), and shut up.

(b) Read the poem, be scandalized by the sexually-loaded vocabulary, dismiss it as a pornographic poem, and burn the author at the stakes.

You could either be (a) or (b). You could either be educated or poetically-challenged.

A reading theory called Transactional Theory (proposed by Rosenblatt in the '70s) has this basic premise that MEANING IS IN THE READER. A poem is just a series of letters printed on paper until the reader processes it and shapes its meaning. As a simultaneous process, the reader is also being shaped by the text. Rosenblatt compares this process to the way a river shapes its banks; while the water shapes the banks, the banks define the river.

Now, this elaboration of a theory may sound too profound for the average-minded, poetically-challenged members of Group (b) in our categories of readers. Let me, then, simplify it for them:

A reader can choose whether or not to be scandalized by the poem s/he reads. Since the reader is the key figure in the reading process, s/he may read the poem maturely, i.e. within the context of literature, or superficially. The moment you view a poem as sleazy, merely erotic, or pornographic, you are, in effect, letting it influence you in an "erotic" way. A poem is said to be "pornographic" because the reader claims s/he got "aroused" by the words in it. Should a poem be defined by the reader's libido?

If you encountered the following excerpts, how would you react?

Ignore my inadequate bosom, my enormous hips.
Look at me and see in me the Woman who suckled you with her soggy breasts.
Mine are still firm and plump and erect.
Feel them, suck them like you sucked your mother's
Back in the days when your Universe was just
A Pair of Nipples Overflowing With Maternal Kindness...

I dare say that a reader who finds sexual arousal in these lines has got some issues. Either s/he is simply poetically-challenged, or s/he needs to see a psychoanalyst who specializes in repressed sexual urges.

What say you?