Welcome to National Poetry Writing Month at Christina Shouts into the Void! This year, I’m focusing on poem lineage. Whether you’re celebrating with a 30/30 challenge (writing 30 poems in 30 days) or just trying to read more poetry this month, I hope these poetry studies serve you.
This week’s poetry study, we’re going to look at poems that talk about shame. Specifically, we’re going to look at poems that trace a journey with shame.
The first poem I want to show you is “Shaving My Pussy: A Play In Four Acts” by Anna Binkovitz. This is the poem that my poem “Cake Face in Four Acts” most closely takes after. In “Shaving My Pussy: A Play In Four Acts,” Binkovitz talks about the ceremony of shaving, and uses it as a vehicle and a lens to examine her relationship with sex, shame, and her body throughout different moments in her life.
I love the act of honoring different stages of a process or relationship. Acknowledging each stage of development feels like the closest possible way to tell the truth. The specific form of breaking the poem up into parts or acts also allows Binkovitz to intentionally shape the narrative, and pinpoint specific moments or stages in her relationship with this ritual.
Rachel Wiley also employs breaking poetry into parts in her poem “Glory in Two Parts.” In this poem, Wiley speaks about what other people are actually saying or implying when they talk about her fatness.
Overall, the poem is celebratory and reclamatory, but breaking it into two parts allowed Wiley to make a clear break and distinction between the harmful intentions of others and the glorious reality of her own experience in her own body. The juxtaposition adds to the power of the poem, and the form serves the narrative.
Something I have found to be true about writing about things I feel ashamed of is how challenging and necessary it often is to be specific. In many ways, our shame only makes sense to us because it is specifically ours, and bringing it into the light or onto a page can complicate that (which is often a very good thing!). This TED Talk by Olivia Gatwood speaks to that.
So, here is your prompt!
Write a poem about something that feels personal and specific to you. This can be a personal care ritual, a habit you’ve developed, a fear you have, a love you cherish, or a feeling or memory you carry. It doesn’t have to be something you’re ashamed of, but it can be!
Consider the ways you might divide the story of this topic into parts or acts. These divisions don’t have to make it to the final draft, but they will help you pace your narrative and think about the way that you or your topic have changed over time.
Questions to help you get started: How does your subject influence or impact your identity? Who else knows about it? Does everyone see it the same way you do? If you chose a ritual or habit, who is your audience? Where did it come from? Why do you still make space for it in your life?
Here is my poem. You can find it in Fight Evil With Poetry.
Cake Face in Four Acts
after Anna Binkovitz
1: Cake Face as an act of discovery
I am thirteen at a boy’s birthday party.
A boy that I like
and a birthday party I didn’t want to go to
because I am thirteen and my body is at war with itself.
I can see some of the battlefields on my face.
An hour before the party starts my mother brings me into her bathroom,
pulls out the the shiny silver compact that the woman at the Macy’s counter
with green eyelids and bubble gum lips chose for her.
I sit on the counter with my back to the mirror while my mother
paints my face the way her friend taught her to in high school.
I turn to face the glass and see how the orange powder rests on my very pale skin
and for the first time in almost a decade
I am invincible.
2: Cake Face as an act of shame
I am invincible until I am thirteen at a boy’s birthday party
wearing my mother’s shade of makeup
and before we sing Happy Birthday, Julie
with her baby perfect vanilla sugar skin
pulls a candle from the box.
With fingernails like glass candy
she holds the candle to my eye level
almost touches my nose
and spits a new term at me
Cake Face.
And now while everyone else is singing I am choking.
I cry myself to sleep that night
but the next day when I look in the mirror
I ask for the makeup again.
3: Cake Face as an act of survival
I ask for the makeup again and again until I am fifteen and
my mother buys me my own.
All the pieces are from the drugstore and
none of them are the same color as my skin
but that doesn’t matter, the goal is not to match
the goal is to cover
to erase
to pretend that Cake Face is enough armor to shield me
from the words in the hallways
and the girl in the mirror.
I pretend to think that they are laughing at Cake Face
not at me.
I pretend no one can see me.
I put pink blush on my cheeks
to pretend that I have to pretend to feel embarrassed.
I put black crayon under my eyes
so I can’t cry until all the lights are off.
The boy says he likes girls with natural beauty
and I pretend I woke up like this.
I use Cake Face as a crutch until one day
another girl tells me she likes my eyes, the ones I made
and I love the way she paints her lips and soon
we can hold each other’s hands behind our shields
and slowly, Cake Face becomes Artist.
4: Cake Face as an act of love
Now, when the man says my makeup does not look natural
I laugh.
I spent forty five minutes on myself this morning
shaping the woman in the mirror with my own hands
in my own likeness
with my own love.
I will not let Mother Nature or God take credit for this.
Do you know what it feels like to love someone so much
that you wake up early every day to paint her like a sunset
because it makes her smile?
I do.
If you write a poem based on this prompt in any way, I’d love to read it! Send me an email at brown.christina.leigh@gmail.com, or slide into my Instagram DMs @christina.leigh.brown.
I’ll be back in your inbox next weekend with another poetry study! Remember, the first two posts will be available to everyone, but the last two will only be available for folks who subscribe for $5/month.
Know a poet looking for prompts this month? Feel free to send this their way.
See you next week!
Christina