Sing the Body Electric: Poetry of the Body

Writing about the physical body is also an opportunity to employ concrete, crisp, memorable details, or to render physicality as a configuration of patterns. Vivid imagery is important as it can quickly convey ideas that are difficult to articulate otherwise, and it can also facilitate an exploration of artistic freedom and experiment. What happens when we try something new in a poem, crank our imagery up all the way and perhaps risk making something new?

Many of us enjoy poems and stories where the proverbial heat is turned up; however, we are often discouraged from writing sex. We are told it is hard. We are told it will sound cheesy and cliché. We are made to believe that writing sex is a trivial pursuit and that it does not constitute serious writing. However, writing sex is liberating and can significantly expand our writing skills.

When we write about pleasure, the sensory experience can easily become a metaphor for something bigger. Why? Because the sensual or erotic depiction, when done well, requires well-developed characters, careful pacing and movement, as well as evocative sensory detail.

This week we will explore the principles of erotic expression and expand our understanding of it. Does a text need to be about intimacy to be sexually charged? Does a good sex scene need to be necessarily beautiful? Can a nature poem be sexy? What about a short story about a sad New Year’s celebration? What makes something sexy, after all?

While each one of us navigates our private individual experiences, we are also part of the collective. Writing about the body can also be writing about its context—the bigger picture—our lineage (familial, artistic or spiritual), the places we live in, and those who surround us. Writing about the body can also be about our interpersonal relationships and the dynamics we have with the societal structures that affect us. When we look at this bigger picture, we not only notice the relationship between ourselves and the world we live in but also between author and authority.

For this week, we will set out in search of moments of truth by writing about the body in a bigger context and by pulling all the personal languages we carry within us—from our hometowns and regions to our family expressions and the communities we’ve been a part of, etc.

Writing in response to a pre-existing piece of art allows us to use our sight in an aesthetic pursuit. Writing ekphrasis not only keeps the writer’s block at bay—there is so much art to write about—but it also allows us to dive much more deeply into our interests, to variegate them and flash them out. Writing in response to art also naturally lends itself to making associative leaps, liberating ourselves from our writing habits, and discovering where association might take us.

This week will allow us to practice finding beauty and artistic value in things that might not be conventionally beautiful—so that we can learn to tune into the world and train our sensibilities to see and appreciate what beauty and emotional power they possess.