Liz Kay's Blog

And now I return with more dino-erotica

I bet you thought I'd given up. I did not. I did write myself into a corner and then I got terribly busy and every time I would open the file I would think, fuck, fuck, fuck.  But last night, as I was explaining to my new poetry students that they would have to write 2 poems a week, I thought, a) 2 poems a week is a lot and I am almost unreasonable to ask it; and b) I guess I should hold myself to some kind of similar standards?

"They don't have to be good," I told my students, "but there have to be two of them." 

Anyway, here is my one poem which is not particularly good, but is 14 lines closer to the end of this dumb idea. 

VIII.

Let them curse us, let them hurl their taunts,
spittled words mottling the dust at our feet.
They rail at what they’re not allowed to want—
lusts souring on the vine while ours grow sweet.
And what is rage but an old neglected grief
that rots in their bellies? They’ve swallowed
their own dark hungers, professed belief
in a god who will not bless the world
he’s made: how the tayberry longs for the mouth;
how the cherry’s tart flesh craves the teeth.
Hear the bee’s thick buzz in the blossom’s pout
as she tastes and sucks, gathers the nectar beneath.
It’s a hymn, a call, our damnable creed.
Oh, but the juicy pulp, those bright and sticky seeds.

 

It is not lost on me that there's no explicit dino-content in this poem, but it is at least erotic-ish and I think the dinosaur was well-established in the previous 7 poems which start here.  

(I've been stuck on this for months. I think we should all cut me some slack.)

 

 

Sonnet VII (fml)

Well this crown project has turned out to offer an unintended insight into my writing process: the early (unrealistic) enthusiasm, the near-immediate commitment to a massively underestimated amount of work, followed by a quick loss of interest, the nagging reminder that I've agreed to do this thing, and then the slow, near-unending slog.

Actually this sounds like my approach to marriage too. Anyway... I have written the seventh sonnet! It was miserable. You may be miserable reading it, but here it is.

 

VII.

And we are audacious, indecent, indiscreet,
the match that sparks the neighbors’ busy tongues,
wagging from behind their window screens.
See her lifted skirt, her hair undone?
But what is gossip to us who are already burning,
ablaze in the furnace of lust’s cruel design?
Even their whispers are singed now with yearning
for the press of your sulfurous mouth against mine.
They imagine the gnashing, the terrible gash,
and aren’t the rabble terrorized, transfixed
to see if the slut is bloodied, broken, slashed?
If it takes a fallen woman to claim this kiss,
then poppet, then pet, why hide what we can flaunt?
Let them curse us, let them hurl their taunts.

 

If you are new to this torment and would like to catch up on the crown of dinosaur-erotica sonnets (why, why, why did I think this was a good idea?), you can start here.

 

Sonnet VI (after much delay)

One thing I'm really not good at is planning ahead. Feel free to confirm this with my husband. I can't think of much that would give him more joy than a long and detailed discussion of my flaws. Anyway, one thing I didn't really plan ahead for when I made this crown commitment was the end of the goddamn quarter. Do you know how much work there is at the end of the quarter? So much. So so much. So many papers and essay exams and student emails. And then there was Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I missed two full weeks of sonnet deadlines, and now Winter quarter is looming. If I were smarter, I would probably be working on prepping for that, but writing is always easiest to accomplish when it helps to facilitate the procrastination of something else. 

 

VI.

Why shouldn’t I, why shouldn’t I get what I want?
Oh it’s unseemly, isn’t it? To name
my desires, give breath to the visions that haunt
me. And there are those who would not have me claim
them, would caution me to wait, to grovel,
to be grateful for whatever is shoved
into my lap, be it ugly or awful—
no matter. The secret to being loved
we tell little girls, is just to deserve it.
But what if love is not the thing I crave?
If I’m not interested in being worthy,
or quiet or kind or carefully behaved?
I’m tired of being pleasant. I wish to be pleased.
Let us be audacious. Indecent. Indiscreet.

 

To catch up, start here.

Sonnet V, (the one with all the rape culture)

 

Wow, so the dino-erotica crown is turning out to be about rape culture. No one could have seen this coming. Just kidding. Anyone could have seen this coming, much like all of the allegations in the news this week which are a surprise to exactly zero people I know. To be fair, the first time I heard the Louis C.K. shit I was crushed. But I heard it maybe 2? years ago. If there's one thing we take our damn sweet time on, it's holding powerful men accountable. Anyway, I guess we can consider this sonnet an early congratulations to Roy Moore, who is mostly likely going to be elected Senator by the great people of the state of Alabama.

Happy Friday, everyone.

 

V.

I am drunk, yes, on the wreck of your kiss
but haven’t I earned it? Haven’t I suffered
enough—another bruised peach in a man’s fist,
clutching my ripped skirt, forced to my battered
knees for forgiveness it wasn’t mine to need.
And so why shouldn’t I change what I am?
I’m done with the cowering virgin, born to plead,
any father’s daughter, another lamb
to be bartered, to be slaughtered on the altar
of a man’s greed. I am tired of being sacred,
sacrificial, baptized in that fetid water.
I choose foul, defiled. I choose profane,
to be your devoured, devouring cunt.
And why shouldn’t I, why shouldn’t I get what I want?

 

 

If you need to catch up with the sonnets, you can start here.

Ugh, Sonnet IV is a disappointment

Well, I predicted this, so I have at least the satisfaction of being right. Really the minute I put the closing line from Sonnet III at the top of the new page I understood that I was in serious trouble. But while this poem is a disappointment, I promise that I was not just phoning it in. I spent hours on this piece of shit. I wrote 3 completely separate (and completely trash) drafts. This final version came together late Wednesday and after a few tweaks last night (and a few more this morning), I have accepted that it is sadly the best I can do. Oh well. We're writing 15 sonnets in 15 weeks here. They can't all be aces. (Remember the "bearded mussel"? Happier times.) 

Anyway, it at least picks up some steam in the third quatrain and I'm pretty confident the closing couplet can propel me into a satisfying Sonnet V. We shall see.

IV.

I’d forsake heaven for this hell I find you in,
forgo the castle for this scavenged nest
of grit and sand. I’ll claim this ruin
and the dark rot of your breath at my breast.
You are an animal and taste like one,
like death and musk and the sour mash of sex.
Press into me with the same cusped talons
that claw through earth and skin. I’ll lick the flecks
of flesh and mud from each tapering tip,
hold one point and then the next in my lips.
What have you punctured? What have you sliced and split?
Will I be pierced and plundered, rent and ripped?
Oh love, I know this is dangerous bliss
but I am drunk on the wreck of your kiss.

 

If you want to pick up from the beginning, the crown starts here.

It's not even Friday, but your weekly installment of dino-erotica is here

I'm going to be stupidly busy tomorrow and so I'm posting early. Do not take this as a promise that all of your weekly dino-erotica will be arriving early. Dino-erotica can't be rushed, friends. Just kidding! Of course it can. For example, I'm posting this new sonnet despite the fact that the closing couplet is giving me so much anxiety. Can I even write a new sonnet that opens with this last line? I don't know! But I have to. That's how a crown of sonnets works. (I suspect that most crowns are actually composed and revised in a much more deliberate way so as to not crash and burn in public, but where's the fun in that?)

 

III.

I’ve never known desire as sharp as this.
never woken from a dream into the heat
of a suffocating night, thighs slick with
sweat and need, a pulse that calls out to meet
you, to feel you, to let you feed. I’m not
the kind of woman to crave a tyrant,
thrill to the curved claw, deign to be caught
in the press of those terrible teeth. And yet…
are we not most alive in the places
we are tender? The curved neck, the slender
wrist, the slope of a full breast. For the trace
of your lizard’s tongue I would surrender
to sin—my consort, my king, my ugliest kin—
forsake heaven for any hell I find you in.

 

Tune in next week for sonnet IV. And follow these links to catch up with sonnets I and II.

Sonnet II. (in which things get very dirty)

II.

Show me your tongue, and I will be your wretched feast.
Will writhe beneath your heated breath.
Claim your dominion, like a god, a king, a priest.
Inside that killing mouth, I will find my little death.
Crush this brittle shell, release the salt, the sweet,
the quivering clam, the bearded mussel.
One talon’s flick could shuck this slippery meat—
this rosy scallop, this oyster ripe with pearls.
Do I delight you? Have you learned to crave
my scent—that sticky brine, that heady brew?
Oh, am I drunk with lust or only brave
to follow, fall under, fall open for you?
I’ll bear the pain to come. I’ll take the risk,
for I’ve never known desire as sharp as this.

 

What is this and why is it so filthy? you may be asking if you've just stumbled onto this blog mid-project. It's a fair question. We're writing a crown of sonnets, friends. Is a crown of sonnets as pretentious as it sounds. Absolutely, yes it is. But this particular crown is dino-erotica, so we're really dumbing it down. We're making sonnets accessible, aren't we? Just kidding. We're just fucking around (with dinosaurs) but the puzzle of the sonnet form is proving to be the exact distraction I've been needing for the past many months when in truth my deepest, most treasured fantasies are not even remotely sexual and revolve pretty fixedly around the figure of Robert Mueller. Anyway, if you're just joining us and need some context, you might want to visit this post. And to read the first sonnet in the crown, go here. 

Tune in next week for sonnet III. Will it be even dirtier? Who knows! I haven't written it yet. I also haven't given this crown a title. Let's crowdsource one. You can offer your suggestions in the comments though I'll see them much faster if you share them on Twitter. If you aren't hanging out with me on Twitter yet, why not? @lizkay09

Shall we get started?

It's a tricky time to be a writer, an artist of any kind I'm sure, but I think especially a writer because the thing we work in is words, and there are words that deeply need to be said right now, words like "everything is terrible," and "the president is a liar," and "once again the full weight of America is falling on the most vulnerable," and "it is possible to have a one-on-one meeting with a woman without harassing or assaulting her, but if you're planning to wear only a bathrobe we're starting off on the wrong foot," and "funny you should mention Puerto Rico; did you know that it's actually part of the U.S. and that they still don't have clean running water?" All of these things need to be said and so we're saying them, and while this is the work of a citizen it's not exactly the work of a writer.

For many of us, these aren't the words we're drawn to, these aren't the moments and stories we need to tell. The real work of a writer is to follow the ideas and characters that won't let go, even if those characters and stories are not about the wildfires in California, are not about climate change, are not about whatever new crisis is going to bubble up from the pit of hell this morning (and you know when I say "pit of hell," of course I mean "the white house" which I realize is normally capitalized but I refuse to extend that honor right now). 

All this to say: do I have mixed feelings about writing a crown of dinosaur erotica sonnets at this current moment in time? I do! But, it's the work I seem to be doing, and I haven't written any poetry for the past few years, so these are giving me a lot of joy. Maybe you need some joy too.

 

I.

It always starts with alliteration.
It always starts with a kind of assault.
I might be hunted, ravaged, taken—
pleasure that’s mine to know, but not my fault.
And there is a shame in what I’m after,
the kind of lust time itself would abhor—
violated by velociraptor—
now I’m more animal, more prey than whore.
But isn’t that the delight of it? This
perversion of God’s, of Nature’s laws.
Let me taste that cruel mouth, that bloodiest kiss,
my body flushed beneath those gripping claws.
I’ll give in to the monster, in to the beast.
Show me your tongue, Love. I will be your wretched feast.

 

See you next Friday for part II. 

In which I finally find a use for this damn blog (and it's dinosaur erotica)

It was at AWP, not Seattle or LA, but the one in between—I think Minneapolis? It’s hard to pin down locations and years with AWP which seems to never either begin or end but simply exist in an alternate dimension of books and bruised egos all brutally illuminated by fluorescent lighting. I’ve been to so many AWPs and my overwhelming sense of it is that I will never miss the opportunity to go but also that I’m done with it. Ugh. AWP. I never want to be there. I wish I was there right now.

Maybe you’ve been to AWP, maybe you haven’t, but you’ve likely been to some gathering in which everyone present is pretty damn knowledgeable about the topic on the table. You know what that’s like—the posturing, the insecurity. And so it’s a deep relief at the end of the day to step back, to refuse to take another goddamn minute of it seriously.

There we were at the hotel bar. It’s possible that I’m the one who raised the topic of dinosaur erotica. It’s possible that someone else did, but either way, we spent much of the evening dramatically reading aloud the jacket descriptions of every title we could find. The best of them (a dedicated scientist leads a team of experts in the development of a time machine that will let her live out her dream of bedding half-a-dozen dinosaur species) is one I can’t find anymore. Maybe the author pulled it in a fit of shame. It’s too bad. There was a gleeful camp to that one that I admired.

Actually, there’s a good bit about the genre that I admire. There’s the naming of female desires—subversive. The dehumanization of the desired male—subversive. And of course, the alliteration in the titles. Not subversive, but still a thing I like.

My good friend was writing a lot of formal poetry at the time, and I tried talking her into dinosaur erotica poems. Ha ha! she said. I brought it up a second time months later. Ha ha! she said again. I tried talking other people into writing these poems. I wanted them desperately. I can’t explain why.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with my creative writing students about how hard it is to get started, how much I like projects. Whether it’s a novel or a thematic collection of stories or poems, the beauty of working on a book is that you don’t really have to face the blank page for a long time.

But now I’m between, I said. I’m a little jealous of you guys for writing; I don’t have anything to write this week.

But didn’t I have any ideas? they asked.

No. No, I didn’t. I most certainly did not. Except… I mean I do kind of want to write a heroic crown of dinosaur erotica sonnets. But that’s sort of…Do you guys know what a heroic crown is?

Back up, they said. We don’t know what dinosaur erotica is.

Anyway, I made a promise and then had to keep it. I like the idea of keeping promises and while I am stupidly, unfathomably busy right now, I think I can promise one sonnet a week. I can’t think of a reason not to just give them to you here. Maybe we’ll start tomorrow.

Birthdays and Newsletters and Poems to Give Away

Monsters is a year old today, which seems pretty strange. 

In August, it'll be coming out in paperback. There will be some giveaways and other things coming up in preparation for that, and of course, you're going to want to know about them, and I'm going to want to tell you, which is why I need you to sign up for my newsletter. I promise, you won't hear from me too much, probably not even as often as you'd like (I am both delightful, so you want to hear from me, and very busy, so you won't). To entice you, I'm giving a small selection of witch poems away to my newsletter subscribers. One is even unpublished. Since I'm incredibly resistant to sending that particular manuscript around, this is the closest you'll get to getting your hands on it for at least a few more years.

Scroll down for the subscription box in the footer.