poety ne maiut' stati.

I was reading a sort of silly little article in the kitchen sink magazine which was speculating which musician's lyrics particular poets might want to inscribe on their jeans. it was all catalysed, you see, by the fact that Bono of U2 has a clothing line, now, & there are lines by Rilke on the inside of the pocket in the jeans. Which is rather pretentious, I think... but the article amused me in that it decided Walt Whitman might like Rufus Wainwright's words in/on his pants, & I agree with that.

So then I was thinking that if I had to put lyrics in my pocket, I would probably inscribe Ani Di Franco. Likely some phrases from Joyful Girl (I do it for the joy it brings / because I am a joyful girl / the world owes me nothing / we owe eachother the world) or Welcome to: (At least you don't have to play along...)

& as for a poem in my pocket, I think the most powerful & the most apt to have scrawled on the inseam or along the waistband would be Halya Kruk's poety ne maiut' stati.

This is one of my most favourite poems; I have it memorized in Ukrainian. 'Poets have no gender' has so many luscious & powerful phrases, like hermafrodyty samotnosti ('hermaphrodites of solitude') and the most delicious of all, linyvu levytsiu u zalamanij trajektoriji pol'otu... ('lazy lioness in the broken trajectory of flight' is a nice translation, but doesn't quite have the same fluidity...)

& perhaps most importantly, it speaks to the way I am increasingly feeling... a girl-shaped person who is feeling more & more asexual in that she is a Person who is more of a medium for idea & spirit & creation than physical body attracted to other physical bodies, which of course are all playing roles, even as they try to shake them off ('the hula-hoops of bodily identification'). & I relate to the paradox of this poem -- as Kruk is trying to write as a Person, she is undeniably a woman, challenging her own experience. Even as we try to transcend gender, it follows us. I believe our identities are fluid, not fixed, but we can't shed these structures completely. We will always have our past & our memory of what we were, & how the outside gaze sees us.

Hemingway in the poem is trapped by his uber-masculinity, he can't transcend it. The other half of the binary (the female lioness) destroys him. But really, he wanted that. He was caught in that hunt, that power struggle, & maybe he wanted that. Obviously lot of people find that tension romantic. But Kruk suggests that we can transcend the binaries of gender, & become clearer. Our voices will clarify, if we can stop 'shouting from between the legs'. The poet, the poetic voice is beyond that. & that clarity is what I aspire to.

My writing is shaped by my experiences as (idenitfying as) a girl-shaped person in this society, they always will be. I want to speak of that experience. But I strongly recognize in myself the poetic genderlessness of the spirit my words filter through.

This is my own translation of Kruk's poem. There is another version too, that you can read (alongside the Ukrainian original), by Olena Jennings, here: http://ukraine.poetryinternational.org/ They're very similar. The last stanza is what I would put on my jeans...

poets have no gender – halyna kruk (2004)

poets have no gender
only faint words embossed upon the flesh
like secondary sex characteristics,
a many-yeared growth of impressions
that never seem fully expressed –
shave it off, or leave it for its charm?

bearded Hemingway hunts down his death –
a lazy lioness in the broken trajectory of flight
she pounces on him swift and heavy,
like a tropical downpour after a long drought,
how many years has he waited for her,
thirsting, hidden,
feeding mosquitoes of routine with his own blood?!

after all, who must wait for whom
in this unwritten codex of existence,
who is hunting whom?

poets have no gender
hermaphrodites of solitude
incomprehensibly desiring the other Other,
giving torturous birth only to themselves,
which is repeated
the repetition of a repetition

the repetition of a repetition –
how can one escape from the hula-hoops of bodily significance?

reconciling these differences within the self
smoothing the genitalia –
all with go smoothly, Hemingway,
without any snags;
the last boundaries of self-identification are crossed,
Gordian knots of mutual obligation are hewn,
Sisyphus’s stone of life is pushed from the summit –

genius has no gender
only a throat raw from shouting
between the legs