You can tell, as you read along, that Shaughnessy has a high-powered intellect, something I usually like in women writers. Honest. This was all pretty much confessional poetry, Shaughnessy spilling her guts all over the place in twisty, quirky language. But the thing about confessional poetry is, if you find the poet appealing in some way, it can be terrific. If not, it’s like being stuck on a Greyhound bus with an over-bearing pain in the ass on a three-day trip across Canada.
Being sexy is so important to humans, it’s repulsive
but what’s not to love? The way you pay in warm
soft cash, erasing cigarettes so cooly. Plus you’re so big.
I warned you people, never sleep with the one you love.
Sleep with the others, make ‘em want you,
and you’ll love ‘em soon enough. Just use the body.
These words are spoken by a dying moth on the windowsill. (In, um, “Moth Death on the Windowsill”)
Brenda Shaughnessy
A lot of her poems, maybe most, are written to some lover, husband, or other poor shnook (one of whom she makes a rather large point of having cheated on):
As it turns out, there is a wrong way to tell this story.
I was wrong to tell you how multi-true everything is,
when it would be truer to say nothing.
I’ve invented so much and prevented more.
But, I’d like to talk with you about other things,
in absolute quiet. In extreme context.
To see you again, isn’t love revision?
It could have gone so many ways.
This is just one of the ways it went.
Tell me another.
--from “One Love Story, Eight Takes”
She’s clever. While there’s a lot of decent writing in these poems, much of it comes off like what happens after a Phi Beta Kappa says, “Let’s talk about our relationship.”
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