Why Your Erotic Poem Isn't

[bronzeage]

Eroticism is an idea, erotic poetry is the means to present it. A successful poem will allow the audience to interpret the idea all alone while showing exactly what the poet wants to be seen.

The great divide among poets is between those who write for themselves and those who are aware of their audience. There is a small group which stands on the line. They write for an audience of one.

Writing erotica for oneself is autoerotica and if one can't please oneself what hope is there to please another. Writing erotica for another is not much more difficult, but when that particular other wants you, the words aren't that important.

Writing effective erotica for one who know the poet only through the words is difficult, but worth the effort.

 

[champagne1982]

The great divide among poets is between those who write for themselves and those who are aware of their audience. There is a small group which stands on the line. They write for an audience of one.

Writing erotica for oneself is autoerotica and if one can't please oneself what hope is there to please another. Writing erotica for another is not much more difficult, but when that particular other wants you, the words aren't that important.

Writing effective erotica for one who know the poet only through the words is difficult, but worth the effort.

Ahhh, but your interpretation of audience seems to be much narrower than mine. I figure an audience may even consist of my panties in the drawer, if that's all that see it. I concentrate on the idea, generally the eroticism finds its way inside.

Funny, I think I write better erotica after I've been thinking sex, not neccessarily sated or on the edge of my seat horny, but aware of my own sexuality. Anyone have thoughts?

 

[hmmnmm]

Ahhh, but your interpretation of audience seems to be much narrower than mine. I figure an audience may even consist of my panties in the drawer, if that's all that see it. I concentrate on the idea, generally the eroticism finds its way inside.

Funny, I think I write better erotica after I've been thinking sex, not neccessarily sated or on the edge of my seat horny, but aware of my own sexuality. Anyone have thoughts?

Oh I have lots of thoughts. They are not very organized and many are in conflict with each other. Not so profound thoughts, fairly fuzzy, so I'll just say Hi and then go see if I can talk one or two of those thoughts to step into this space.

I do think it is funny that you used the word Funny.

And I am going to tend to think there's something to what you said about the state of mind or mood. For the reader, writer, listener: is it funny? Sexy? Scary? Shocking? Mood will likely play a huge role. UNLESS - you get something that possesses or speaks or feels with some quality that literally transcends that present state. Arrests and alters that mood. Lingers. Can't shake it. Might not want to. Some wording or feeling or moment that everytime I recall it, I can't not laugh or can't not feel that delicious arousal, or can't not get a shiver up the spine. And what marks the thing that can do that? For oneself, one's love, or a roomful of strangers? Ain't got a clue. And prolly why the whole damn field is too irresistible to ever really quit.

 

[WilliamButlerYeats]

Graphic depictions and descriptions are the usual culprits of anti-erotica. Vulgar language which veils nothing and can only be read one way can't be any more poetic than There was a man from Nantucket... Porn vs. Erotica as argued on this site and many others.

I get in trouble in real life with Ms. Yeats with a similar distinction. Sometimes I'm just horny as heck and I tell her exactly what I'm thinking and it turns her off. Some people just need to be made love to with words before they drop their knickers. Your poem isn't erotic because it's masturbatory to you and only you, and I need a poem to convince me to enter a fantasy where I can participate.

 

[bronzeage]

Ahhh, but your interpretation of audience seems to be much narrower than mine. I figure an audience may even consist of my panties in the drawer, if that's all that see it. I concentrate on the idea, generally the eroticism finds its way inside.

Funny, I think I write better erotica after I've been thinking sex, not neccessarily sated or on the edge of my seat horny, but aware of my own sexuality. Anyone have thoughts?

I've never been able to write poetry for myself. I am a very disinterested audience. My goal is pure manipulation of someone else.

 

[bogusagain]

I've never been able to write poetry for myself. I am a very disinterested audience. My goal is pure manipulation of someone else.

That seems a very sensible reason for writing poetry.

I remember when I was a spotty teenager and wrote my way into Mary Wright's knickers, quite literally. I wrote a love poem on her inner thigh while a gang of us lazed on the grass in the summer heat. I once wrote a poem about it on Lit, about inching up her thigh and a damp stain appearing like a starburst on the crotch of her white cotton pants. Aaaah. That gave me a lesson in the power of poetry. Now I'm going to be nostalgic for the day.

 

[bronzeage]

That seems a very sensible reason for writing poetry.

I remember when I was a spotty teenager and wrote my way into Mary Wright's knickers, quite literally. I wrote a love poem on her inner thigh while a gang of us lazed on the grass in the summer heat. I once wrote a poem about it on Lit, about inching up her thigh and a damp stain appearing like a starburst on the crotch of her white cotton pants. Aaaah. That gave me a lesson in the power of poetry. Now I'm going to be nostalgic for the day.

This is an example of impure manipulation.

 

[bogusagain]

This is an example of impure manipulation.

ROFL So successful in its impurity I've been nostalgic for the last day or so and busy trying to find the original poem but can't. Must have deleted it a long time ago as not worth keeping. However, the memory made me so restless I tried to rewrite it the best I can but I think it is probably a poor pastiche of the original.

sprawled on the fresh mown lawn
we stretched like pelts in the sun
your dress had hitched up to reveal
a crease in your white cotton pants
as though love required a diagram

this simple graphic dared me
to brush my hand against your leg
you flicked as though wafting away a fly
repositioning yourself to give advantage
to my predatory eye

my animal love more determined
as I inched up your inner thigh
a damp stain spreading like a starburst
betrayed your mock indifference
as I wrote a poem beneath your confession

‘you are the heartbeat in my world
the centre of my entire universe’
you are the prize of my possibilities
and how later I kissed you where
lust’s betrayal made its mark

 

[MichaelinChina]

Maybe she got it tattooed on her inner thigh..go check??
I mean would YOU wash it off?

Although I have little to contribute right now, I am enjoying this thread immensely.

 

[Vixen96]

What a fabulous thread and forum. I have been lurking on Lit for a long time and finally decided to come out of hiding - please be kind! Despite having failed to put any of my own poetry out there for the masses (not believing it to be strong enough) I adore both reading and writing poetry and found this discussion fascinating.

As the original post stated, the 'erotics' of poetry is far less about explicit, highly sexual description. What is far more erotic for me is when the words are loaded with a sensual subtext, the words spoken out loud caressing the senses in the same way music can elicit particular reactions. Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market springs to mind:

"Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:"

Another example is Carol Ann Duffy's Warming Her Pearls. The sensual description, the imagery of the pearls around the neck with the skin heating the stones and the soft touches like the light blush of the skin and so on, all make this (in my humble opinion) a fine example of what I would consider to be an 'erotic' poem.

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I´ll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She´s beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit´s foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head.... Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does.... And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.

*gulps*

Well - that is my view.

Hello all, I look forward to joining in more discussions and I do hope that post is not about to get soundly blasted

 

[bogusagain]

.

Hello all, I look forward to joining in more discussions and I do hope that post is not about to get soundly blasted

Not at all. Keep the poems coming. I like Carol Anne Duffy, very very funny poet but she can also be very sensuous.

 

[MichaelinChina]

Yes please, i second the motion about keeping the erotic poems coming.

 

[Tzara]

One of the books I read this last weekend while out at the ocean was the anthology The Best American Poetry 2006, which I picked up remaindered at Powell's Books in Portland (If you ever find yourself in Portland—Oregon, that is—by all means visit the main store on Burnside Street. The place is heaven for booklovers) for something like six bucks. This particular edition was guest edited by Billy Collins, and his introduction talked about an aspect of reading poetry that really resonated with me:

As a reader, I come to trust or distrust the authority of the poem after reading just a few lines. Do I hear a voice that is making reasonable claims for itself—usually a first-person voice speaking fallibly but honestly—or does the poem begin with a grand pronouncement, a riddle, or an intimate confession foisted on me by a stranger?​

The poem I want to talk about next is, I think, a really good example of "a poem that is speaking fallibly but honestly," even though some might tag it as being "an intimate confession foisted on me by a stranger."

This poem is SeattleRain's nothing like it. The poem is, on the surface, about anal sex, which (at least at Lit) is nothing shocking, given the number of incest and BDSM poems that get posted. It is, perhaps, a bit startlingly confessional and intimate, but again, not all that unusual for Lit.

What is unusual, at least in my experience here, is the tone of the poem. It's a (fairly) explicit poem about a woman wanting to have anal sex and in which she talks to her lover about how she has "stuck a dildo in my ass" and damn if it ends up being kind of sad!

This is kind of like a magic trick. It works because of the absolute honesty of the narrator in talking about her wants and in the distant and, I think, almost kind of bemused, responses of her lover. The coda, where the N washes the dildo she used under the sink / where my children brush their teeth gives the poem a kind of poignancy in how her desires end up repressed through the mismatch of libidos, or interest, or need.

You all may disagree whether this poem is erotic or not. Which is fair, given all our different triggers and such. To me, what makes this poem especially erotic is the glimpse it provides into the psyche and wants of its narrator. What I identify with is the want for something that your/her partner does not share. The poem makes the narrator real to me in a way that your basic Lit dripping pussy/steel-hard cock poem does not.

We've all had sex (those few who have not, you will fairly soon). Retelling the mechanics isn't very interesting. Kind of been there, done that myself.

The emotions behind the act? There you've got me.

 

[Tzara]

It was Tess who first introduced me to the poems of Irving Layton—I think when he died in 2006. On a subsequent trip to Vancouver (BC, not WA), I bought a copy of his Selected Poems.

Layton is and was a pretty earthy guy. He wrote fairly often about sex and in a kind of matter-of-fact and blunt fashion that makes me always think of our bogusagain. Both poets are nothing if not straightforward about their sexual encounters, very frank, while still (this is important) talking about what brings the sexes together.

Neither is romantic. Here's Layton:

The Convertible

Her breath already smelled of whisky.
She lit a cigarette
And pointed to a flask in the glove compartment.
Then our mouths met.

She placed her hand on my groin;
She hadn't bothered to remove her wedding ring.
Her eyes closed with a sigh.
I was ready for the gathering.

You, Dulla, may prefer maidenheads;
But give me the bored young wives of Hampstead
Whose husbands provide them with smart convertibles
And who are reasonably well-read.​

Is that not kind of classically a guy's paradise? A woman of wealth and intelligence who simply wants to fuck?

Maybe, and for some guys almost certainly. In any case, a poem that appeals to that mentality.

Since I've also mentioned bogusagain, let me link his poem "Vincent 500" which is about a woman and a motorcycle and not quite so gruffy masculine as I think he likes to be.

Check it out.

 

[sinuous]

its all about visualization

an incomplete version of below somehow posted before its time.

 

[sinuous]

its all about visualization

is it not, erotic or not erotic. I agree, cliches, mundane, worn out words without any kind of imagery painted. A person could write a poem about the engine of a car running smoothly, yet use a few words to allude or suddenly interject a sensual matter, pistons slickly oiled, priming pumps, idling iambic curls...well something like that.
i shuddered when I read some poems that were about lick, slick, fuck,suck, beat, oh, wow, cum again and again, screaming your name...do it again, baby fuck me hard, give it to me and so on. I dont want to write like that, I would rather stick it out writing stories...
however; I find the difference between writing a story and poetry is so vast and even a bit confusing. How do you know when is enough or not enough for a poem, or even too much. How do you stop from third guessing?

I enjoyed this post, thanks
cheerios

 

[bogusagain]

Since I've also mentioned bogusagain, let me link his poem "Vincent 500" which is about a woman and a motorcycle and not quite so gruffy masculine as I think he likes to be.

Check it out.

Thanks for reminding me of this Tzara. Maggie really existed, still does and still apparently has a motorbike. I could't help but edit it a little, there were always a couple of little things that irritated me.

Maggie with electric copper mane
brighter than fire, clad in black leather
animal skin stretched over animal
sat astride an old Vincent five hundred
its single piston thumping hard

holding the bull by the horns
a twist of the wrist, urged more power
her straightened back, took the shock
the machine belched blue and growled
spat grit then thundered up road

this could be fiction but not the memory
riding pillion through the Rivelin Valley
the inflated sun like a target on the horizon
female anatomy pushed hard into my groin
not that I was in control, I was hanging on

the fragile woman with milk white skin
turned Amazon, my life depending on her skill
she handled lovers like she handled a bike
easing them into the bend, lower, lower
accelerating out, then a wheely along the straight

in awe, you surrender to your fate, knowing
if the road doesn't get you, her sex will
the addiction of life at speed, an intake of breath
overtaking and weaving through the flow of traffic
the summer, Silver Machine hammered the airwaves

in cafes and pubs, blasting out at alight parties
we shared drinks and body fluids, her leathers
unzipped to her navel, the globes of her breasts
smooth as stone, threatened to push free
the shape of her clitoris, pressed into my tongue

the sodium street lights bent like sunflower heads
pollinating the dark suburban streets we cruised
my arms belted around her waist, my hands gloved
in her leathers, jealously guarding her sex
"It's a need." she said "A need for something there."

 

[Tzara]

One of the things that irritates me about most of the erotic poetry here is that it is about sex.

I know. That sounds off, way off, but what I mean by that is that the prototypical Lit erotic poem (at least the heterosexual ones) attempt to describe a particular sexual act. Intercourse, most often, however wild or weirdly positioned. Fellatio. Cunnilingus. Various BDSM practices.

That these poems are also usually very clichéd in language doesn't help. But I think that a big part of their problem is that they are focusing on the wrong aspect of sex. At least the wrong aspect for writing a poem.

Think about it. Unless you're very young, you've probably had sex. Multiple times. You know how wonderful it can be (and also know how it can be less than wonderful, but that's a different thread topic). Maybe it hasn't been porn fantasy fantastic for you (which is another problem with most of the "erotic" poems posted here), but all-in-all, it was pretty darn satisfying. And way, way fun.

But you have been there. Multiple times, one hopes. It isn't like a poem describing even really transcendant male/female intercourse is something that is so completely foreign to you that you need someone with a limited and rather smutty vocabulary to instantiate the experience for you.

What makes poems erotic is how they communicate experience to the reader.

That is what I would argue what an erotic poem should be about. Atmosphere. Attraction. What leads one into sex.

I was going to link in a couple poems by Yeats here, and will link them in later, but right now I want to link to a Lit poet who, I think, writes wonderfully erotic poems. This poem, by the much missed darkmaas, is about as suggestively erotic as any poem I know. Nothing much happens in it (well, some ice is placed somewhere at best implied) and there is no sex.

But the poem itself is hot as hell.

 

[MichaelinChina]

One of the joys of this site is popping into this erotic poetry thread, catching up on the poems I've missed.
And reading your 'think pieces'.

 

[Tzara]

One of the joys of this site is popping into this erotic poetry thread, catching up on the poems I've missed.
And reading your 'think pieces'.

Thank you, MiC.

 

[twelveoone]

One of the things that irritates me about most of the erotic poetry here is that it is about sex.

I know. That sounds off, way off, but what I mean by that is that the prototypical Lit erotic poem (at least the heterosexual ones) attempt to describe a particular sexual act. Intercourse, most often, however wild or weirdly positioned. Fellatio. Cunnilingus. Various BDSM practices.

That these poems are also usually very clichéd in language doesn't help. But I think that a big part of their problem is that they are focusing on the wrong aspect of sex. At least the wrong aspect for writing a poem.

Think about it. Unless you're very young, you've probably had sex. Multiple times. You know how wonderful it can be (and also know how it can be less than wonderful, but that's a different thread topic). Maybe it hasn't been porn fantasy fantastic for you (which is another problem with most of the "erotic" poems posted here), but all-in-all, it was pretty darn satisfying. And way, way fun.

But you have been there. Multiple times, one hopes. It isn't like a poem describing even really transcendant male/female intercourse is something that is so completely foreign to you that you need someone with a limited and rather smutty vocabulary to instantiate the experience for you.

What makes poems erotic is how they communicate experience to the reader.

That is what I would argue what an erotic poem should be about. Atmosphere. Attraction. What leads one into sex.

I was going to link in a couple poems by Yeats here, and will link them in later, but right now I want to link to a Lit poet who, I think, writes wonderfully erotic poems. This poem, by the much missed darkmaas, is about as suggestively erotic as any poem I know. Nothing much happens in it (well, some ice is placed somewhere at best implied) and there is no sex.

But the poem itself is hot as hell.

the otheris the reason of the I

 

[champagne1982]

is it not, erotic or not erotic. I agree, cliches, mundane, worn out words without any kind of imagery painted. A person could write a poem about the engine of a car running smoothly, yet use a few words to allude or suddenly interject a sensual matter, pistons slickly oiled, priming pumps, idling iambic curls...well something like that.
i shuddered when I read some poems that were about lick, slick, fuck,suck, beat, oh, wow, cum again and again, screaming your name...do it again, baby fuck me hard, give it to me and so on. I dont want to write like that, I would rather stick it out writing stories...
however; I find the difference between writing a story and poetry is so vast and even a bit confusing. How do you know when is enough or not enough for a poem, or even too much. How do you stop from third guessing?

I enjoyed this post, thanks
cheerios

Is this the one you're alluding to, sinuous?The Oil Change was loads of fun to write.

 

[annanova]

One of the books I read this last weekend while out at the ocean was the anthology The Best American Poetry 2006, which I picked up remaindered at Powell's Books in Portland (If you ever find yourself in Portland—Oregon, that is—by all means visit the main store on Burnside Street. The place is heaven for booklovers) for something like six bucks.

I'm not a poet. Oh, so very not a poet. However, I do write and like popping in here every so often because some of the conversations I see get me to thinking differently about how I write.

Tzara, my most recent story might be set on the Oregon Coast, but this post made me homesick. God, I miss Powell's. I could have spent my 20s living there. Pre-renovation even.

Anyway, as a writer of prose, thank you all for helping me remember the importance of suggestiong, subtlety and imagery. I don't always use them successfully, but I continue to strive.

 

[ninianne]

One of the things that irritates me about most of the erotic poetry here is that it is about sex.

I know. That sounds off, way off, but what I mean by that is that the prototypical Lit erotic poem (at least the heterosexual ones) attempt to describe a particular sexual act. Intercourse, most often, however wild or weirdly positioned. Fellatio. Cunnilingus. Various BDSM practices.

That these poems are also usually very clichéd in language doesn't help. But I think that a big part of their problem is that they are focusing on the wrong aspect of sex. At least the wrong aspect for writing a poem.

Think about it. Unless you're very young, you've probably had sex. Multiple times. You know how wonderful it can be (and also know how it can be less than wonderful, but that's a different thread topic). Maybe it hasn't been porn fantasy fantastic for you (which is another problem with most of the "erotic" poems posted here), but all-in-all, it was pretty darn satisfying. And way, way fun.

But you have been there. Multiple times, one hopes. It isn't like a poem describing even really transcendant male/female intercourse is something that is so completely foreign to you that you need someone with a limited and rather smutty vocabulary to instantiate the experience for you.

What makes poems erotic is how they communicate experience to the reader.

That is what I would argue what an erotic poem should be about. Atmosphere. Attraction. What leads one into sex.

I was going to link in a couple poems by Yeats here, and will link them in later, but right now I want to link to a Lit poet who, I think, writes wonderfully erotic poems. This poem, by the much missed darkmaas, is about as suggestively erotic as any poem I know. Nothing much happens in it (well, some ice is placed somewhere at best implied) and there is no sex.

But the poem itself is hot as hell.

One of the wonderful things about poetry is the way it leads a reader to an idea without saying it even once. If it has to say it straight out, it wasn't clear enough. It's about subtlety, about images that make associations in our heads that are so right that they seem obvious in retrospect but we could only have come by them through the poem.

I'm not saying all poetry is like that (not even all good poetry). I enjoy reading non-erotic poems--even non-erotic sex poems. For example, I love John Donne, but his most famous sex poem is not erotic at all. "The Flea" might be about sex, but it's an intellectual exercise (and funny--it makes me laugh every time), not about making the reader yearn for touch. But that's what erotic poetry is--it's about the mind and the senses--about the foreplay, not the main action.

Compared to that ideal, poetry that reduces itself to "you suck. *spit* yuck. tough luck, dumb fuck." is more like a badly written how-to manual than erotic poetry.

 

[MichaelinChina]

One of the wonderful things about poetry is the way it leads a reader to an idea without saying it even once. If it has to say it straight out, it wasn't clear enough. It's about subtlety, about images that make associations in our heads that are so right that they seem obvious in retrospect but we could only have come by them through the poem.

I'm not saying all poetry is like that (not even all good poetry). I enjoy reading non-erotic poems--even non-erotic sex poems. For example, I love John Donne, but his most famous sex poem is not erotic at all. "The Flea" might be about sex, but it's an intellectual exercise (and funny--it makes me laugh every time), not about making the reader yearn for touch. But that's what erotic poetry is--it's about the mind and the senses--about the foreplay, not the main action.

Compared to that ideal, poetry that reduces itself to "you suck. *spit* yuck. tough luck, dumb fuck." is more like a badly written how-to manual than erotic poetry.

I am glad I popped back in to read that. Intriguing insights there.