Branden Books Merges Two Books of Poetry into The Sexuality of Two 1970s American Poets - Do Check It Out!

For this book, parts of the back cover are provided for immediate reference...

In the case of the little known American poet, John, he was a highly acclaimed poet. In reading his sonnets, the reader quickly realizes that John has more than mastered the art form of poetry. His sonnets are among the more beautifully written, and very powerful in imagery. Yet, it seems, John never mastered the art of love or lovemaking, or of life itself, or life's values. He complains about his shortcomings as well as those of the women with whom he had coitur or intercourse--never a satisfying experience, though he was the father of five legitimate children...

Laura Lee, on the other hand, was sexually extraordinaire. She did not write about an ideal lover, and her virtue was not in writing Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets. Her strength was in acknowledging her libido, and in knowing, acquiring, and appreciating what she got and what she gave...By indulging in love-making, she also delighted her partners. And, her poetry flowed out of her in a language that continues to be cohesive, natural and beautiful...

The Sexuality of Two 1970s
  American Poets

 My Last Mistress,              By John

 Naked in Your Eye, By Laura Lee

In many ways, the poetry of John is unusual. Whereas, for me, at least, I think of poetry as romantic, sometimes sexy, but mostly that it is beautiful to read and enjoy. Not so, in the book called My Last Mistress by John. Was it written in the later years of his life as somewhat of a memoir? Had he learned, realized, how he had lived his life and felt some compulsion to seek, perhaps, forgiveness?

The book is divided into 5 sections: The Will to Wander, To One Too Near, Exploration and Defeat, At Last the Dawn, and Ending and Aftermath... A number of poems are entitled as if they were written for specific people and indeed sometimes are answers to an individual as if he had received some missive from that individual and chose to respond in poetry form. But the reader only gets to know the Initial: H, P, etc. I was therefore somewhat hesitant to read, to try to understand, and often read only further because I was compelled to read on... This was the first one which really quite my attention...

Musings at a Lakeside Inn

When the antique flute had played

a midnight knell to pleasure's end,

 And, reluctant partings made

Each to his stuccoed cell condemned,

Embalmed in scent of pines and must,

The lake's dark circle watching over,

I saw despairing in the west

A chalk-white moon fall into Dover.

How like children when we parted,

Scolded by the curfew pipe, 

Whose play must end when barely started!

Must short bars short hours keep?

Would the silver flute had blended 

Into full orchestral gladness

And canoes were newly mended,

Set adrift in new-found madness!

Great porch bright with lanterns hung,

Floorboards creaking, whirling dancers.

Would that joyous songs were sung!

Joyous questions, joyous answers!

Dark reflections would conspire

In the mirror of a cove,

Star conjoin with water lilies,

Trembling petals echo love,

But onr Inn sleeps by still waters,

Moldering in summer's sweet decay,

Entombing all her sons and daughters

Called untimely from their play

Nights long past are one with this one

And a sadness none can tell,

When he views his soul unchanging,

Each knows in his stuccoed hell.

~~~

From the poignancy of young love in Musings at a Lakeside Inn, or Night Over Jersey, we follow John through the beginnings of temptation such as with:

Secretaries!...

To the Devil, 1969

Satan, cursed be your serpent schemes

That coil on themselves. What irony

When evil ends employ such modest means

To weave false hope on summer's tapestry.

Is this your Marguerite to tempt my Faust,

Personifying paradise on earth?

It seems your corporate office, counting costs,

Trades but such beauty as the soul be worth!

Progressive fiend, you know the times demand

Your fictions with our fashions change apace--

The spinning wheel is gone; her maiden hands

Now ply electric keyboards in its place,

And air-conditioned corridors as well

As leafy lanes may lead the way to hell.

Then the cynic starts to appear as he has passed from temptation on to feelings of rightness, or desire...or need.

Jealousy

My wife resents my mistress,

Who in turn resents my wife,

And the ladies both are jealous

Of a third,

For they share a common envy

Of the muse who rules my life

And begrudge the metered whispers

I have heard.

They would have my substance wasted

On their interwoman strike,

Leaving not a cent to publish

These poor words

~~~

But reality starts to enter when he pens 

Adultery

Who supplements his wife

May claim

To have autmented life

But shame

Increases too with career

Of error

And aggrandizes fear

To Terror

~~~

But like the publisher suggests on the back of the book, John's  words are found through his muse indeed, but with love, he's still the worse... For me, this was clearly demonstrated as he wrote the title poem, "My Last Mistress" which appeared earlier this week...Check it out if you haven't yet read... At this point, he has lost all sense of emotional stability, as he discusses his last mistress with a woman he is now trying to seduce. If she was disgusted as I was with what he said, she didn't have dinner with him that night...

But is there hope for John? Is this unique book really his life story in poetic form? And does he end life still looking for something--a fantasy he will never find? Or does he one day reach a point when he has no choice but to look backward and reflect on his failings, his joys, his triumphs? Readers will be intrigued to follow John's road--some of his stories are sad, some will amaze you with his inability to see himself at that time, others will be funny, such as the adultery poem--if it wasn't so close to reality...

Funny, you know, the poetry of the 70s might just have led to what is routinely occurring in today's world... Except most hide it, deny it, or else Instagram it to the world! I think it was brave of John to create the story of his life--or, if not biographical, to be able to look at the lives of men and put it before readers in such delightful verse!

While John is the more thought-provoking of the two writers, Laura Lee presents as a bold, unapologetic woman who happily shared her thoughts. I was most intrigued by her poem regarding her death which was posted earlier this week. I would admit that was probably due to my age and love of books, LOL!

Frankly, Lee's poetry is too allegorical for my taste. I've become so literal in reading so many books that I have come to dislike having to figure out what the author wants the reader to understand about her words. Take for instance,

Pop the Cork

take out my cork

I've been bobbing around in the waves

for so long

phosphorescent nights

unreal purples at the bottom

when I dared to venture down

the bends coming up again

fast, brutal, but, oh

the sky is above me

and clouds form faces I have known

and want to follow

but they dissolve into nothing

all my loves are wrong for me

destructive

they want to crack me open

and drink my blood

so I stayed for all these centuries

locked in this bottle

you passed me on the beach and i cried--

help! I felt your need, too, your gentle

beauty reached out to me, but you walked on by

I am still bottled up floating around this

universe waiting for you to pull off my cock

and help me emerge the whole me

not what other want to see...

pop the cork

even if it breaks

and I die from pollution

for this air tight container

restrains my growth

cripples

ships are locked in bottles

not people

not me

i want to go to the veldt [as below?}

and watch the lions

drink and play 

I want to go to big sur 

and dance at nepenthe, [drug]

drinking hot buttered mm while the phoenix burns

so i, too, can fly into a tomorrow

smelling of redwoods, streams

and fresh forest air

where I can return to the womb

at night 

in a water bed

sandwiched in satin sheets with you.

~~~

Sure, I get the gest of it--the romantic tale in which she shares her feelings and desires... but when I read, I don't want to guess...so, please, could anybody help me understand what "Pop the Cork" means if it doesn't mean what I think it means...LOL... Still, when you read such a verse, it does tend to haunt you, wanting you to explore whether this is really, after all, just a story about a genie in the bottle perhaps??? Wanting to be taken home by the Captain!

But then when she got explicit, it was very explicit...

Desire

When you fumbled my girl breasts

I burned with desire.

our hips learning, pressing, covering.

The small of your back made room for my fingers.

Your neck was salty.

Woman was my name.

Later, alone, licking my lips,

I wished I hadn't let you.

~~~

And, of course, I was pleased to read about Midnight, with quite a different story... my favorite, of course...

Midnight

His black velvet, impossible skin

wraps itself around my arm

while he burns holes through me with his

golden eyes and witchcraft.

My little sultan of the rooftops 

is a male chauvinist

who patrols the sky by night

awaiting any female prey

But I forgive him,

for he crawls into my bed each morning

and serenades me with a lullaby of purrs.

This book of poetry is refreshing in its honesty, its depth of emotional sharing, and its topical interest. While some poems are erotic, most, instead, are a revelation of the writers' personal emotions about their individual lives and those within their surroundings. Nothing is sacred, yet it is in no way a form of  content that is not suitable for adults and some young adults.

If you enjoy poetry, I wholeheartedly invite you into this memorable merge of the lives of one woman and one man, speaking out to readers in the best way they know how to express their feelings. Their sexuality is the reality of being wholly man and wholly woman, sharing what has been important to them, respectively. For me it was revelatory...and memorable...

GABixlerReviews

Yes

Come into the lily, tarry

relishing the petals.

 Drink deep the juice
and revel.
Take care our stems
don't choke.
I love you best
when my roots can stretch
to heaven or to hell.
~~~