One of my recent pleasures has been reading the poems and prose in Caribbean Erotic. So I’ve selected some of the poems in the collection for inclusion in this year’s edition of the Caribbean Women Writers series. Each one I’ve selected uses the erotic in a manner I think is appropriately described in the following excerpt from Audre Lorde’s essay, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” which is also included in the collection:
In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.
___________
From “Women’s Wicked Desires”
--Susan Dracius (translated by Hanétha Vété-Congolo)
Women too revel in riding
Thighs spread apart
Seated astride shamelessly
As they say in polite language...
À la Andromaque
That’s why you won’t talk about it
That’s how you will be happy to
Do all of these things you are saying
Promptly at dawn
All of these honeyed things
Forbidden in theory
As they say
Women’s wicked desires
What can befall us
By doing all that you are asking for
If we do them for fun
Since today’s strong woman
Won’t be abused for it
I do hope you can grasp
How I defy the kind of feminine prudishness
That wants to hold me back
When I dare perform
The saucy somersaults you ask
Even though I know I shouldn’t
Since I’m a well-bred young lady
As they say
Now I am the wicked one
And I’m asking you to do all these juicy things
And sing my song in tune with me
As they say
A woman’s wicked desires.
Do I really need to leave my senses
For us to enjoy some pleasure
“Vaginal Scan”
--Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
It is the day after my fifteenth
wedding anniversary.
My vagina is being prodded.
I lie naked from the waist down
on a teak-brown exam table,
watch as her deft fingers
spread a bead of ultrasound gel
on the tip of the penis-like probe.
With her teeth she tears open
the packet, slips the condom
expertly onto the sonic camera
and re-gels the tip.
With thumb resting on a testicular
looking saddle, she swirls my vulva
searching for the opening.
Quickly she finds it and slides
the camera into my vagina,
painlessly, smoothly, well-greased.
I breathe slowly In Out
as she opens the cervix
shooting my womb: perfectly photogenic.
I breathe more calmly
as she presses on the sides
capturing flawless follicular cysts,
beauty marks on my ovaries.
“The Market Woman”
--Rosamond King
She falls in love with the market woman
when she is supposed to be feeling tomatoes
she smells the green pepper sweat of Her flesh
leaning into the christophene she searches
for the salt fish scent in Her lap.
As she waits fingers weigh her, fingers drop her
together in pieces. Rough, but not too
rough. Reaching out with the money she’s
vortexed into the young-old, old-young
eyes. Thinking, today She will pull me into
Her narrows that widen and widen, but She just say
“Go ‘long gyal.” She doesn’t know there is a thing called
lesbian. She just fell in love with the market woman.
“Gracias Yemaya”
--Lucía M. Suárez
Alone like an island in a wide sea
I longed for love, for anchoring,
for someone who would see me
and need me.
Love fluttered down like a dove
from a faraway icy-cold mountain.
Draped in blue, floating on ocean froth,
I was sun-quenched and warm;
I chose you for safety
but found myself alone.
I closed my eyes and dreamed
opened them and welcomed new life.
I birthed our girl child who claims all of the world’s continents
as her grandparents
I nurse this child; we sway gently to sleep
I dream we are wading in warm milk
The sun and moon above us
guide and direct us toward peace.
My gift to you: understanding
Your gift to me: awakening
Our gift to her: safety
The strength in love beckons desire
The mother I embody is also a
ravenous body ready to consume you,
burning for a new union of singing flesh,
and spiritual transformation.
“Come In”
--Donna Aza Weir-Soley
Oh, to be young again
to grind the night away on the dance floor
return to tango in torrid sheets
or lose ourselves en route
to golden gates
of passionate promises
and find our soul’s redemption in
one innocent kiss...
Such sentimental foolishness
keeps ideals alive
Youth renews its vigour
beckoning the heart
to come in from the
godless cold.
___________
If you’d like to receive a copy of Caribbean Erotic (I’m only offering one, sorry), be the first to let me know here in the comments, or by email: signifyinguyana@gmail.com.
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