[PLASTER PRINCESS] was one poem I did in a series of poems where I had made pages upon pages of lists of words taken from Reference books. My task was then to incoporate these words in some meaningful way into poems. I did so by letting my eyes go over the page, seeing what words I began to connect and then I went with those connections. I would use words when I felt it necessary and as often as I wanted to, with no limit on how many went in each poem, and just let the words take me until I hit an end, and then did it over again. After a long revision process I cut about half of the material which hadn’t worked as well, and then took what was left and turned it all into probably 20 poems. So, this was one in a series.
Because of the large number of words drawn from a medical dictionary, this poem had a heavy focus on that, and so therefore ends up coming out to be a sort of hospital scene. And even though it did get me out of how I used to write, I was still writing a poem that was very much me. What ended up coming out of the connections was a sort of mistrust of the doctor, or doctors, and the narrative of a female that appeared in several of the other poems in this series.
Due to the nature of the language, the voice ended up being one of an omniscient group of doctors subjecting this rebellious female to strange, bizzare testing. Also, I ended up touching on issues of femininity with the obvious sexuality of the poem, as they are trying to change her face and they are caculating her weight loss. They also brand her, opposed to her rebellion of drug use (codeine) and lesbianism (cunnilingus). They see it as a hedonism, and that her only concern is gratification. Here, they are trying to remake her into what they want: a plastic, skinny, but silent woman, heterosexual, and conforming to society’s expectations.
The risk I took with this poem was by using the voice of the Authority figure, as if I actually agreed with it. I don’t, but that shouldn’t be a factor to it at all. My goal was to illuminate something I saw, whether or not it is an exaggeration, or even absurd at points. By using the unreality I hope to illuminate a truer reality of human nature exposed in extremes. For, no, these things aren’t right, but that is not my place to say. I was simply observing and reporting. Yes, I can’t avoid my biases, but I hope by taking an unusual approach I remove myself more and allow the reader to make their own connections. This is only one interpretation. I may be the poet, but that in no way makes me right as to what my poem means. There is what I intended, and then what is actually received. Perhaps this poem is upsetting.
Perhaps it is offensive. But by pushing comfort zones, I hope that we can get out of our complacency, and maybe take notice, and be moved enough to do something. Or maybe the poem isn’t upsetting enough. Maybe we are already so desensitized that it’ll take the extremest of extremes to move people to act, or to at least take notice.
-ian
