The Vaginal Trilogue: Critical Conversations

         The poem ‘The Vaginal Trilogue’ is a poem in three parts by Julz Amare Poeta ala The Black Widow (both pen names). Part one, entitled ‘The Vaginal Trilogue: The Ruling’ sets the stage of the defensive that can only come from a person who holds dear the women species. The first stanza goes:

“Herein is the verdict of the case of the Host Female Vs the “Society”.

In the matter of ascertaining ownership of the vagina,
As a tangible and intellectual property,
And award of right of use and proper acknowledgement!

          The persona in the poem is of the opinion that ‘Host Female’ has been subjected to constant ridicule, mockery and taunts of the way she uses her God given organ that is the vagina by the ‘Society.’ This is apparent in the second stanza whereby the persona rails in hammers and tongs:  

“It was proven that there were attempts made by the “Society” at
Hostile possession of the vagina by a number of “sex advice” columns,
Which were geared at influencing the choice and number of tenant,”

                                         INSET: Julz Amare Poeta in a past event.

            The dialogue is between the ‘Host Female’ and the ‘Society’ and there are accusations and counter-accusations of the “misappropriation of the vagina.” Society alleges that the vagina is being used in most inappropriate ways “as a tool of extortion of tenants.” In this case, tenants symbolize those who get the opportunity to interact with the organ in the coitus business. Further, the ‘Society’ cites cases whereby the ‘Host Female’ has used their female power of sexual appeal and image to secure jobs and promotions, climb the social ladder and trap men in marriages (Line 9, 10, 11, stanza 3).
 

            The last stanza is an assurance. For the ‘Host Female’ has been suddenly hoisted on the pedestal of a plaintiff. May be to draw sympathy. To provoke tears of the crocodile. The constant misuse of sexual image that has been exploited by ladies to attain unwarranted advantages in different life spheres are wholesomely lumped as ‘criminal acts’ accusations (Line 20, stanza 6). This suggests that the court has the jurisdiction to punish in terms of eviction those who fail to recognize the sanctity of the vagina. And in dire consequences, a fine, pap!

The second part is called ‘The Vaginal Trilogue: Dear Yoni.’ This part is detached from its predecessor. Call it worlds apart as the East and the West. The persona laments that he knows nothing about this Yoni. However, the persona happily highlights the mysteries surrounding his object. 

“Your thoughts are an alien to me,
            Your actions all the more beguilling,
            I have sought your depth,
            In the basest of shallows,
            Wanting only your nurturing warmth.”
            At the expense of your knowledge.

I feel nothing is of importance to the second part of the trilogy because there is no connection to the first part. The enigma and the heroic concealment of Yoni’s nature and character does not relate to the well prepared defense in the first part. The second part, therefore, is better taken away to give the poem a uniform flow of thought and dialogue. 

The third part and the last titled ‘The Vaginal Trilogue: The Vaginal Apocalypse’ finally shakes the foundations of the thesis that was presented in the first part. No words are minced. No lip-synching. The first stanza reads:

“The die has been cast,
            And it has come to pass,
            An apocalypse is afoot,
            Upon friend and foe alike!”

Here the poet’s diction comes alive than ever. Several poetic devices have been interspersed in order to bring the full effect of an apocalypse. The final truth. Expose of the decade somehow. Alliteration dances with delight in the second stanza, line 2 as follows: “Nor in girlish giggling…” The first line of the third stanza has onomatopoeia of “sound like Hoo Hah.” This last part is symbolically empowering womanhood. It is ranting against abuse of sexuality. Sexual misogyny and the objectification of women that we see especially in popular music videos. The persona does not want the ‘apocalypse’ that is a metaphoric term for womanhood to be ‘reduced to some inanimate object.” Something ‘To be poled, rammed or pounded (by) any and every phallic projection!” In other words, the apocalypse is like the famous poem by Gil Scott Heron ‘Revolution Will Not be Televised.’ The persona rightly cautions that ‘…this apocalypse is faithful and pure in tantric union.’

The complete declaration is wrapped in six-line stanza with short lines revealing the magnificence and literary value of words.  The persona quips, I bet with a promising tone:

            “This apocalypse is vaginal,
            The reason for which we are termed women,
            A symbol of life and of love will come,
            As an epiphany to women,
            As a revelation to men
            And a realization to society.”

The poem is a worthy read because the poet opens your eyes with the experimentation of a word deemed taboo in most African societies. Vagina! Did you just say that?

Access the poem in this link: http://aumaj.wordpress.com/

Book Review: The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald

             

           This is the first masterpiece I have read that is unputdownable. It is so fast paced; it glides in a flash second before your very eyes like a work of magic that before you realize, you are done. And you have got nothing from it. Published almost a century ago, 1925 to be specific, the book is considered one of the greatest works of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

            It is about a man called Jay Gatsby told in the voice of one Nick Carraway who happens to be his neighbor. Gatsby is a man of pomp and color in terms of hosting endless parties that attract people from different states in America. But the fun ends there. A dimension of emptiness and loneliness sets in that is characteristic of the partygoers. The narrator almost contemptuously remarks:
            “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited — they went there.”

            During the party, Nick Carraway with another partygoer called Jordan Baker while taking a walk inside the several rooms of Gatsby’s majestic mansion chance upon a drunk in the library. He forks:

            “Who brought you?” he demanded. “Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.”

He continues:
            “I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to

sit in a library.”         

            Jay Gatsby, however, is a man who is never happy and always looks distant. He is a man obsessed with impressing Daisy Buchanan, a married woman of impeccable glitter and glamour. Daisy Buchanan was his former lover about a half a decade ago and Gatsby has never gotten over their former intense affair.

            The sun finally sets on Gatsby when he dies and only his father, Nick Carraway and the man who was at the library attends his hurried funeral. Not even Daisy Buchanan or his best friend wants to get associated with him. The former soldier eventually goes with a hollow dream of the past that never materializes and only ends up distressed in the end.

            The author through his narrator quips in a reflective and sentimental note:
            “It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

            This book will leave you flustered and asking questions that have no immediate answers. For those who have had trouble with their past love life – the fascination with the first love – you will quake in a haunting distress of the pointlessness of it.  

            The author, a celebrated novelist and short story writer of the Lost Generation will sweep you off your feet like a girl in love with his lines in the book. Sample a few:

             “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

            “When the JAZZ HISTORY OF THE WORLD was over, girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their falls — but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.”

            “I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others — poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner — young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”

            “Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty — the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.

So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.”