Danielle Pafunda | Poetry Hut Blog

So do you think this poem is racist, as has been interpreted here? I can think of a few poems with the P word — Plath, Bukowski … Macbeth. Philip Levine I bet.

I am sooo getting sick of political-correctness groupthink. Die Gedanken sind frei.

Poetry News For June 24, 2008

Poetry News:

— Aleda Shirley (1955-2008): An Appreciation —

— On the Gurlesque part 2 —

— Holy Shit —

— Emerging writers are published with established writers around a loose theme —

— The Beat Generation’s jazz sensibility still resonates in a new century —

— Poetry with je ne sais quoi —

— It’s all in Buffalo, and it’s all housed in the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection —

— Sixteen poets, sixteen essays about mental illness and poetry —

— The end of an odyssey - Homer’s epic is finally pinned down —

— Could this be the way that literary magazines regain an audience —

I don’t think I have one shred of that “Gurlesque” going on. I think it is because I started working when I was 7 & didn’t have a middle-class suburban environment LOL? I’m not very glittery, anyway. That might be it. That is not anything judgmental in any way - I’m just being factual haha. I have a lot of male energy. Mars in my astrology chart conjuncts my ascendant, trines my Jupiter, trines my nodes, sextiles my midheaven & sun, and squares Chiron, Saturn, Uranus, & Pluto. (T-square with Mars/Asc and Uranus/Chiron.) Luckily (29 degree Sag.) Mars is in the 12th or I’d probably be a violent criminal haha instead of a somewhat peaceful Buddhist who just enjoys stirring things up when something is an affront to her sense of truth & justice & can’t shut up about it.

So in my book I have poems about war, gambling, sports, tooth extraction, surgery/body getting cut open, cut off hands (mentioned in 2 poems haha), 1 frozen decapitated head, someone hammering nails up his nose, tattoos, boxing, blood and scars. I think just about the only color mentioned in there is red, too. I didn’t even include the poems with gunshot wounds, taxidermy or sword swallowing. And I’m not a guy hahaha….

All Mars stuff I’ve realized but I try to be beautiful about it at least. So I guess my poetry is quite the antithesis of Gurlesque, actually….hahahaha. I’ll have to think of a snappy label for it. Warplay. haha.

Sylvia Plath had some pronounced Mars action in her astrology chart too & her poetry is pretty bloody. That & her brilliant music is probably why she’s my favorite poet. But that was probably Pluto, too, in her case. (With her issues about death.) So I would have to suggest that “Tulips” (as mentioned in the Gurlesque pt 2 link, above) is not merely submissive but rather it is Plutonian/underworldian in its theme. Because illness has a heavy aspect of destructive overpowering transformation, right, & you’re abducted by it. What, you’re NOT going to hand over your name to the nurses & give over your body to Pluto after you arrive in Hades? You really have no choice. You’ve been kidnapped!

Coincidentally we both have Venus in Virgo. Plath used the word “pure” a lot — (”Pure? What does it mean?”) — she wrote those heavy-duty hospital / health poems, too. (Virgo.) Face Lift, Tulips, Surgeon at 3 a.m, Fever 103.

Contemporary poetry needs more blood and guts…. I’d write more but I have to take Darryl to the airport.

PS William Carlos Williams was a Virgo — check out how many times he uses the word “white” in his poems — if this is not a “pure” Virgo poem I don’t know what is:

Nanucket

Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow

changed by white curtains-
Smell of cleanliness-

Sunshine of late afternoon-
On the glass tray

a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which

a key is lying- And the
immaculate white bed

If you've clicked on a tag, you will see posts from my blog that have featured that tag. At the bottom of the page is a list of all the tags I've ever used on this blog. -- Jilly