Tuesday Report, Poem

[highlyeccentric]

Today I: finalised a (small) grant application and sent it off; had continuing Out of Cucumber Errors over german "anrede" and gendered forms of address; had a nap; took clothes to the donation bin and bought coffee, which ended up being free because the barista fucked up and made me an approximation of a flat white (not a thing here) instead of a cap but I said I'd drink it anyway; did some work on my book proposal; listened to the Lafayette college lecture Shakespeare, Race and Queer Sexuality (part one).

I also took sfred's dinner idea from last week, and made baked potatoes with halloumi. In my case: cubed potatoes and sweet potato (par cook in microwave), with quartered onions, whole garlic cloves, and asparagus spears. Douse in olive oil with pepper and herbs. Add cubed halloumi. Bake. Nom.

BDE
Alison C. Rollins

God gave me a man
Who I, in turn, bodied
Had he lived, I would
Take myself more seriously.
Come what may I will
Get myself together,
I will whip myself into
The shape of a man
Who has put away
Childish things. I will
Take a woman as my toy
And pretend, in doing so,
I am highly favoured.

(For the record I'm just pulling up poems in the order I saved them, aside from occasionally typing out one from a hard copy - the Fryatt, for ex - so links between my particular day and the choice of poem occur at the point of posting.)

Comments

[sfred]

Nom.

[highlyeccentric]

I had forgotten I had the asparagus, too, so that was a fortuitous discovery for both current noms and for avoiding manky vegetables.

[liv]

So, poem, I assume that's BDE in the internet sense, Big Dick Energy, and not the Jewish sense, Blessed is the True Judge (said in response to news of a death)? Normally it's pretty easy to disambiguate by context but this is using a lot of religious metaphor and the line 'Who I, in turn, bodied' made me think it was perhaps about death as well as gender?

[highlyeccentric]

I THINK I saw this introduced with the version Big Dyke Energy, which obviously has the standard meaning as implicit contrast. No idea about the religious possibilities, I'm afraid!

[highlyeccentric]

Wait that's a lie. There's some obvious to me religious references: 'childish things' is reference to 1 Corinthians 13:11, 'highly favoured' is Luke 1:29 (but my brain is itching like there might be something else - can't find anything in Song of Songs, which is where I first thought to look). It wouldn't surprise me if the author had woven in both Jewish and Christian references, although I don't know anything about Rollins' background per se.

[liv]

Yes, it's very layered but it's fairly clear that one of the things it's about is the Incarnation. I wondered if God gave me a man was a reference to Genesis 4: I have gotten a man from the Lord, said by Eve of Cain, which is a four-word phrase in Hebrew and is fairly ambiguous about the relationship between Eve, a man, and God. Could still be a Christian reference to the Old Testament, of course.

If the title is supposed to evoke the Jewish prayer, the poem might connect to the 14th century religious poem by maybe-a-trans-woman.