Olga Broumas’ Beginning With O is a book that takes me from one edge of language to the other. It is rich with situations and ideas that were unheard of (or just coming to light) at the time of its publication. Brouma is able to capture her readers with moments of astute rumination in one stanza then catapult them into a world of racy ideas and language in the following stanza.
As wonderful as this visual and mental whiplash sounds, I found myself often disappointed at the predictability of the language. I set myself up for wading through the beauty of the language until I hit the other side, which always came. Broumas does deliver punches in her poems though. There were some wonderful images that were worded perfectly from the very first poem Sometimes, as a child:
you’d dive
from the float, the pier, the stone
promontory, through water so startled
it held the shape of our plunge . . . (1)
What stood out in this stanza is the very unique way Broumas described the dive of the subject. In poetry we are told that nothing is new, nothing is groundbreaking. We, as poets, have to fight a constant battle of finding new and fresh ways to describe the same old things. Broumas did a wonderful job of doing this with “through water so startled/it held the shape of our plunge . . .” The language is simultaneously romantic and dangerous, and the verb “held” paired with “startled,” “shape,” and “plunge” give this scene the appropriate drama that is easily visualized for the reader.
Another poem that stood out to me was Beauty and the Beast. Here, Broumas pairs pain with ecstasy through her word choices:
For years I fantasized pain
driving, driving
me over each threshold
I thought I had, till finally
the joy in my flesh would break
loose with the terrible strain, and undulate
in great spasmic circles, centered
in cunt and heart. I clung to pain (55)
First, let me list the words that I consider to trigger an association with pain: pain (in both instances), terrible, break, strain, and cunt.
Now, the ecstasy words: fantasized, joy, loose, heart.
The word “cunt” is in the former list, not because the female anatomy suggests a place of pain for me, but because of the shock of the actual word. The fact that it is still shocking today (in most situations and to most people) only emphasizes the shock of it in 1977 when this book was published.
This simultaneous presence of pain and ecstasy in the poem is what is found in human relationships. The pleasure sought, and the pain that follows or proceeds. It is a constant back-and-forth-pull on emotions that really emphasizes the confusion in any given relationship that is based on curiosity, and even love. There is one word that takes the poem into a sexual realm: “undulate.” Since “undulate” has the ability to feel and sound both painful and fantastic, its presence helps create a sexual tension that keeps the poem balanced between pain and ecstasy, thus allowing the reader to feel both emotions while reading.
Something that left me disappointed in these poems was the way Broumas attempted to emulate Anne Sexton, and fell short. She used Sexton’s quote “A woman/who loves a woman/is forever young,” as an epigraph in “Rapunzel,” but failed to match Sexton's language in any way (59). An epigraph is supposed to support your poem, not outshine your poem, and I thought that in this instance the latter happened. I couldn’t even quote one area to support this, since it was the poem’s language as a whole. It just fell short for me. Broumas has wonderful language throughout, but I thought she set herself up for failure once she brought Sexton into the picture. Then, to make things just slightly more insulting, she writes this stanza in “Snow White” :
A woman
who loves a woman
who loves a woman
who loves a man (69).
Now, there is no way I can know why Broumas did this, or what, exactly, her goal was for this quote. But I know that I wanted to put the book down after reading this. It struck me as weak and insulting, regardless of how it fit into the poem. Sexton nailed it the first time, and I found no need for Broumas’ watered-down attempt at imitation. Sadly, this appears in the last poem of the book, and leaves me feeling a bit ripped-off as to the lingering language that I will remember from Broumas.
3 comments:
It's true that there was language in this collection that just wanted to be a little bit stronger, a little bit stranger. I wondered if she really wanted to make a point at deconstruction why didn't she toy with the language just a bit more? If she really wanted to make a point with it why not go all Gertrude Stein on us? That's a woman who said it in a weird way. Maybe too weird for Broumas, I don't know.
Yes, I agree. There was a definitely need of something more in regard to the language. Some parts were beautiful, but other parts just left me with the feeling that she just gave up, or copped-out.
What an interesting post. I think the strongest thing about Broumas is her use of language and the way in which she pushes us to both sensualize and intellectualize when we may not feel like doing either. Her language is profoundly different from Sexon's but not, I would argue, worse. Perhaps it was a mistake to put Sexon's voice in our head initially, but not because Broumas' voice is not as strong; I'd argue it's stronger than Sexton's, more ambitious, less prone to cliche, more tightly focused. But it's different, that's for sure, and maybe misleading to start off with it in the one poem you mention above. I hope we'll talk more about the connections and differences between them both.
Post a Comment