The Friday Poem on 16/09/22
We chose ‘Wet for Literature’ by Devon Webb to be our Friday Poem this week because it’s a) kinda sexy b) frank and uncompromising and c) all about books. We love the meandering, digressive nature of this poem, the way it pulls in stuff from Narnia to Dune, from Jack Kerouac to Cloud Atlas. It is big enough to hold and convey the eroticism implicit in a tidily-arranged bookshelf as well as the joy of realistic emotional tension in a fantasy adventure novel. And, after ranging far and wide, it brings it all down to a celebration of the emotional power and promise of literature in all its forms. Bravo!
Wet for Literature
I used to go out of my way to get laid
but now I’m lying here on a man’s bed
thirsting for the third instalment in the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman
you know like I’m not even that fussed about sex anymore I just wanna read
Bookshelves make me horny
I have two in my bedroom & the patterns,
the colours of the spines all lined up
are so reassuringly familiar it makes me feel safe in an exciting kind of way
& I lie there before them in a state of heightened anticipation
like oh my god I’ve still got the whole of Cloud Atlas before me
& this thick Murakami & the new Paolini & all the Kerouac I’ve not yet read
as my perfect Bardugo collection glitters at me like an old lovely friend
& then when that’s all done
I’ll go to Unity with all the money I specifically don’t spend so I can
spend it at Unity
& stock up on the rest of the Dune books & Nancy Mitford
& those specific middle-grade books that make me feel like a kid again
& the classics I haven’t got to yet
& maybe some local poetry cos I want THWUP to publish me
& just whatever the fuck calls to me from the fantasy section cos it all makes me weak
IT WILL LITERALLY
NEVER
END
unlike men
I sit here building mental shrines to the boys I meet along the way
Quentin Coldwater who everybody hates but I adore
& Laurie, & Gilbert Blythe who I’m having a hard time accepting isn’t real
I have a literal framed photograph of Eddie Kaspbrak on my bedside table
who reminds me that we’re all a little gay & anxious & afraid & that’s ok
Anyway point is books are brilliant because they aren’t real
in the same way that they’re terrible because they aren’t real
Imagine if this was actually like Narnia or Fillory & we could just
step inside & disappear
I guess we can in a way
as I lie here entirely alone & yet profoundly unalone
the time passes with breezy vivid ease
& I feel so much less ADHD
Sucked in with my whole soul dripping with this
bright ecstatic pleasure
call me a slut for escapism
anywhere but here the boys are actually into old-school romance
Here they learn from their mistakes & have character development
here everything is easily constructed into dialogue
& reader & character can both understand
here words have power, magic essence of creation
& everything makes sense in a sad happy way
Like if you just turn another page you’ll get laid
but not in a quick apathetic boring modern kind of way
but Daphne & Simon style, like, in a fucking meadow on a picnic blanket or some shit
in a like, we’re saving the world but we’re also in love
but we’ve also got very realistic emotional tension Alina & Mal kind of way
like …
beautifully, you know
If I have sex I want it to feel like
how I feel looking at my bookshelves, sparkling spines lined up tenderly
comfortable, enchanted, holding my breath
& ready for whatever comes next.
