suas palavras falam por mim

“Um homem jamais pode entender o tipo de solidão que uma mulher experimenta. Um homem se deita sobre o útero da mulher apenas para se fortalecer, ele se nutre desta fusão, se ergue e vai ao mundo, a seu trabalho, a sua batalha, sua arte. Ele não é solitário. Ele é ocupado. A memória de nadar no líquido aminótico lhe dá energia, completude. A mulher pode ser ocupada também, mas ela se sente vazia. Sensualidade para ela não é apenas uma onda de prazer em que ela se banhou, uma carga elétrica de prazer no contato com outra. Quando o homem se deita sobre o útero dela, ela é preenchida, cada ato de amor, ter o homem dentro dela, um ato de nascer e renascer, carregar uma criança e carregar um homem. Toda vez que o homem deita em seu útero se renova no desejo de agir, de ser. Mas para uma mulher, o climax não é o nascimento, mas o momento em que o homem descansa dentro dela.”

“Chorei porque não era mais uma criança com a fé cega de criança. Chorei porque não podia mais acreditar e adoro acreditar. Chorei porque daqui em diante chorarei menos. Chorei porque perdi a minha dor e ainda não estou acostumada com a ausência dela.”

O ímpeto de crescer e viver intensamente,
foi tão forte em mim, que não consegui resistir a ele.
Enfrentei meus sentimentos.
A vida não é racional!
É louca e cheia de mágoa.
Mas não quero viver comigo mesma.
Quero paixão, prazer, barulho, bebedeira, e todo o mal.
Quero ouvir música rouca, ver rostos, roçar em corpos,
beber um Benedictine ardente.
Quero conhecer pessoas perversas, ser íntima delas.
Quero morder a vida, e ser despedaçada por ela.
Eu estava esperando.
Esta é a hora da expansão, do viver verdadeiro.
Todo o resto foi uma preparação.
A verdade é que sou inconstante,
com estímulos sensuais em muitas direções.
Fiquei docemente adormecida por alguns séculos,
e entrei em erupção sem avisar.

Me nego a viver em um mundo ordinário como uma mulher ordinária.
A estabelecer relações ordinárias.Necessito o êxtase. Não me adaptarei ao mundo. Me adapto a mim mesma.

O amor nunca morre de morte natural. Ele morre porque nós não sabemos como renovar a sua fonte. Morre de cegueira e dos erros e das traições . Morre de doença e das feridas; morre de exaustão, das devastações, da falta de brilho

eu amo Anais Nin!♥♥♥

“Quando você voltar eu vou lhe dar um banquete literário de sexo _ isto significa foder e conversar, e conversar e foder. Anais, eu vou abrir suas entranhas. Deus me perdoe se esta carta algum dia for aberta por engano. Não posso evitar. Eu a quero.  Eu a amo. Você é comida e bebida para mim, toda a máquina de vida. Deitar sobre você é uma coisa, mas me aproximar de você é outra. Sinto-me unido a você, como se fôssemos um só, você é minha quer isso seja reconhecido ou não. Todos os dias que agora espero são uma tortura. Estou contando-os lenta e dolorosamente. Mas faça com que essa tortura seja o mais breve possível. Preciso de você. Deus, quero vê-la em Louveciennes, vê-la naquela luz dourada da janela, em seu vestido verde do Nilo e seu rosto pálido, uma palidez gelada como a da noite do concerto. Eu a amo como você é. Adoro seus quadris, a palidez dourada, o declive de suas nádegas, o calor dentro de você, a sua umidade. Anais, eu a amo tanto, tanto! Estou ficando sem fala. Estou sentado aqui escrevendo-lhe com uma tremenda ereção. Posso sentir sua boca macia fechando-se sobre mim, sua perna apertando-me, vê-la novamente aqui na cozinha levantando o vestido e sentando-se em cima de mim e a cadeira movendo-se no chão da cozinha, fazendo tamp, tamp.”

Anais Nin.”Henry e June”.

“Em meu quarto tiro a roupa de baixo manchada. Lembro-me de frases suas que vou saborear à noite. O gosto do pênis dele ainda está em minha boca. Minha orelha arde de suas mordidas. Eu quero encher o mundo com Henry, com seus bilhetes diabólicos, plágios, distorções, caricaturas, tolices, mentiras, profundidades.”

Anais Nin.”Henry e June”.

“As prostitutas me complementam. Eu compreendo o alívio que um homem deve sentir em sair com uma mulher sem exigências a respeito de suas emoções ou sentimentos.”

“Desde que ele veio a mim, pratiquei a fidelidade das protitutas: não sinto prazer exceto com ele.”

Anais Nin.”Henry e June”.

“June não tem idéias ou fantasias próprias. Elas lhe são dadas por outros que são inspirados por seu ser. Hugo diz com irritação que ela é uma caixa vazia e que eu sou a caixa cheia. Mas quem quer as idéias, as fantasias, os conteúdos, se a caixa é bela e inspiradora? Sou inspirada por June, a caixa vazia. Pensar nela no meio do dia me eleva da vida comum. O mundo nunca foi tão vazio para mim desde que a conheci. June fornece a carne bela, incandescente, a voz fulgorante, os olhos inescrustáveis, os gestos drogados, a presença, o corpo, a imagem encarnada de nossas imaginações. O que somos nós? Apenas os criadores. Ela é.”

Anais Nin.”Henry e June”.

“Todo o resto foi uma preparação. Trinta anos de espera angustiada. E estes são os dias por que vivi. E estar consciente disso, tão plenamente consciente, isso é que é quase humanamente insuportável.”

Anais Nin.”Henry e June”.

"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." 
Anais Nin

  This keeps me awake at night. What I can't figure out is,
how everyone else can sleep.

for Anais Nin



You were every bit a child still, at thirty
when that afternoon in the hot mistral

you invited him in
and in
and in

until he tangled your conscience

with pheromones

and tender insistence,

drowning your homesickness

in his ocean of chromosomes

that gave life to your own
until he filled you up

and came out the other side
through your delicate lips,

whispering and

spilling onto burning pages
that flipped like heartbeats as you wrote
and the pen in your fingertips

which I know for certain
trembled with electric truth

while the rains fell on a dreaming Paris

you stopped descending into

as your rumpled sheets

became your home.

So tell me how it was—
did he stroke your hip,

confess secrets of all the women
he’s kissed, about
how he’d really missed you,

thought of you all these lonely years?

Did he whisper in your ear
that really, this is no abomination,

that you’re his secret garden—

staring into your irises,

watering your trembling orchids,

plucking and admiring

this harvest he created

and telling you how you were always
the favorite child,

a twin phoenix
burning savagely in his bed,

eternally merged in bliss

as the forgetful wails of streetcars
dappled the sighs
of amnesiac Electra

and did he offer, like a gift,
this sickness you’d wear forever
like a glamorous pendant,
diligent student of tristesse—
like those butterfly kisses

he placed on each eyelid
just maybe that once
before he gave himself
into your arms

and returned what he’d stolen

from his littlest devotee
with the contrived debauchery
only true artists embrace.



But darling, he didn’t tell you
that hell is not forever:

just a fleeting velvet station
of shame,

a flowered apostasy
as inevitable as a train wreck—
and when he wanted to leave,

did he make

some spent-sperm excuse

about work or sleep or space

as he left you wrecked and whole?

But he didn’t realize

that you elected this disgrace,
justified your poised madness

with epicurean tastes—
you picked the time,

chose the place—
you showed him your letters

you’d then erase—
rode him to justice

and captured his flattery
in the spiderweb
of your womanhood.

You won his remembrance

after so much neglect
and paid him in vengeance

without ever really intending,

dear curious Anais,

to break him,
but you did—

though only with tenderness.



With the silent grace

of a lioness,
you stole back the fire
he ripped from you

so long ago

and tucked it into your heart,

binding his need delicately
with the silver filaments 

of your words and limbs
to light your white pages

with the dignity of calculated sin.



© Sarah Noack 2007

Do you know this quote?  Never heard of it?  Oh, that’s because I just said it the other day while chatting on my cellphone with my dear friend A.  As I spent an afternoon getting to know racks of fine brocade and country tweeds, the vintage shopkeeper overheard me and asked if she could quote it.  ”Of course!” I said smiling, secretly pleased she thought my random statement was noteworthy.  If you happen to use it, do mention that you co-opted it from the Love Collage. 

Here we are in the crush of early November, a funny period where the energy of summer wanes and we find ourselves slowly fading into hibernation mode. We often contemplate ourselves, our life, our time. “How did the year pass so quickly? I meant to start this and accomplish that.” But when we evaluate the status of all our good intentions, only some have materialized while others remain talk and no action. 

Whenever I find myself succumbing to bouts of lethargy, I look for quotes that will surge my inspiration and energy.  At times, I hang these on postcards around my bedroom as love notes to self or I write them in my journal to remember.  Here are some of my favourite:

• “When there’s nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.”  – I love this quote from the beginning of The Stars’ song, Your Ex-Lover is Dead.  While the quote is up for interpretation, I like to believe it means when you have exhausted every avenue, the only thing left to ignite is yourself and your passion.  A kind of visual metaphor of being lit with passion. 
• “There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”  – French erotic literary legend Anais Nin documented her life via her journals.  Her quotes are among the most beautifully written, thought-provoking and sentimental I have ever read. Insert sigh.

Portrait of Anais Nin in lovely Spanish dress. Loving the head dress and lace.

• “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” Confucius so simple, so eloquent.  Many of his quotes juxtapose light and dark.  They are short and sweet, easy to remember.  And it’s true, your heart never lies.

Co jakiś czas zaglądam na allegro w nadziei, że znajdę nową Anais. Złudnej, jak się najczęściej okazuje Obserwuję umiarkowany ruch w dziale literatura, do tego przedmioty “Anais” zajmują zwykle 1 stronę. Ceny też raczej umiarkowane.To już nie te czasy, kiedy licytowałam polskie wydanie w twardej okładce Henry i June (Muza, 1996). Zażarta walka trwała do końca: koszt książki – 90 zł, mój triumf – bezcenny! I w sumie nie mam czego żałować, bo już nie widziałam takiego wydania na innych aukcjach a moja “półka Anais” wygląda pięknie 

Dlatego zdziwiło mnie ostatnie odkrycie – literatura biograficzna w cenie 136 zł (z przesyłką, oferta “kup teraz” tylko 125 zł). Co prawda aukcja kończy się jutro (wtorek 10 listopada o 21:15) i nie ma jak dotąd żadnych ofert, ale widać, że ktoś ceni (dosłownie) postać Anais… Niesamowita okazja – 2 ciekawe biografie:

Linde Sauber: Tysiąc i jedna kobieta. Anais Nin i jej życie oraz Noel Riley Fitch: Anais. Życie erotyczne Anais Nin.

Przypominam, że Noel jest kobietą

“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

In the alternate universe of Facebook there is one question that is always asked: What’s on your mind? Every time I read that question in my status box I am always tempted to type what I’m really thinking, but almost every time I don’t. Why? Because sometimes what I’m thinking would be highly offensive to some people. Other times what I would say would be too personal. This isn’t just true in reference to my status on Facebook, it is also true in life. There are numerous times every day when I do not really say what is on my mind or what I really feel. The reason I don’t is the same reasons I don’t say what’s really on my mind on Facebook.

Life is full of moments when we are unable to say the things we really want to say. I imagine there is a store room somewhere in the heavens that contains all the words and thoughts that I have ever wanted to verbally express. The wonderful reality is that as a writer I can visit that store room and give freedom to the words and thoughts that I am unable to say in life. This is true of every artist. The books, movies, plays, or poems that I remember the most are those that give expression to the things that I always felt like I was unable to say. It doesn’t matter if it is offensive, personal, emotional, positive, or negative it is the role of the artist to express that which the rest of society leaves unsaid.

So if you are a writer, painter, playwright, poet, or any other type of artist may you continue to give expression to those things that the rest of the world is unable to say!

I have oftentimes said that in order to achieve the results we want in any area of our lives, we have to discover the ingredients we need to make those results happen. Pretend for just one moment that you are a master chef who is creating a new recipe with no guidance or direction . . . a recipe that will be the product of creativity, expertise, knowledge, and perhaps a dash of two of instinct. Do you see that having each ingredient in the right proportion will be essential to the eventual outcome? This may sound a bit like a scientific experiment to some of you, and in a way life can be like that, also. When we find that the thought patterns and attitudes that we have held onto for so long are no longer working for us, we are forced to either remain unfulfilled or to explore new choices and different decisions.

As I said in my blog article “Be Yourself”, you cannot always count on someone else backing you up in a decision that you make. Why? Well, although there are those toxic individuals who might well not have your best interest at heart, there are also those people who are rather timid souls themselves and are therefore apt to discourage you from taking any major risks.

I’m sure you realize by now that I am a diva who is willing to take risks. But that doesn’t mean that I have’t had plenty of times in which I have either pressured myself or  been pressured by others into continuing down a path that was not the right one for me.

To cut away from the path that has been chosen by you or by others for you requires you to be bold and daring. Does it require you to let go of fear? No, it doesn’t. What it does require, however, is for you to allow your faith in yourself to overcome your fear.

Susan Jeffers wrote a book entitled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, and I think that title sums up the kind of attitude towards life that you have to adopt. If you wait for fear to go away, you will die with most of your potential still locked inside you. Conversely, if you understand that only until you push past the fear and do what you want to do or need to do in spite of fear, you will end up creating the kind of life that you have always desired.

I remember reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway a couple of years ago. I thought I had absorbed the concept of the book completely. For a few weeks, I recommended the book to everyone who crossed my path, thinking that it contained the “secret” to ultimate success and fulfillment. The problem was, even though I had read every word in Susan Jeffers’ book, I had not learned how to apply the knowledge I had acquired.  Have you ever listened to a self-help CD program or read a motivational book and felt incredibly enthusiastic about it only to find that the feeling was only temporary? If so, why do you think that is? Well, for one thing, you have probably fallen into a set of habits in your life–habits that pretty much have control over most of your thoughts and actions.

The American psychologist and philosopher William James, in his work The Principles of Psychology, discusses the role that habit plays in our destiny in the chapter entitled “Habit”. James recounts incidents in which people’s habits have become so deeply ingrained that much of the time they do not even think about that which they are doing. He encourages us to make our nervous system our ally in the establishment of a new habit, for it is within our nervous system that habits take root, for better or worse. 

When someone talks about being on “automatic pilot,” what he or she means is that whatever action is being spoken of has become almost entirely automatic on his or her part. In a way, if you let enough of your habits become automatic, you are more like an automaton than a human being. That is, of course, an exaggeration. Yet I think it points out with remarkable clarity how dangerous it could be to allow yourself to lapse into a mode in which your cognitive functions are scarcely being used at all.

One thing that sets humans apart from animals is our ability to reason and to make conscious choices about our behavior. In the animal world, procreation is more of an instinct than a decision, whereas many people never have offspring. When we choose to ignore the pivotal role that our mind and our thoughts have in our lives, we are negating that which sets us apart as unique and remarkable human beings. At any given moment in time, we have the ability to make a change in our lives, whether small or large, simply by changing the way we think. Yet, so many of us do not take advantage of this incredible ability we possess. Yes, sometimes it is a struggle to change our thoughts when our emotions are in conflict with those thoughts.  But when we minimize our instinctual responses and try to tap into our incredible reasoning capabilities, we will usually find that we can make a change that might have seemed impossible at first.

Since I mentioned recipes, cooking, and ingredients at the beginning of my post, I want to return to the idea of life being like a recipe. There are not only things you have to put into the recipe but also there are ingredients that you have to leave out. That means that concocting the dish of your dreams may be as much about letting go as it is about increasing. Some things that you will find necessary to let go of may not ever have been very important to you. You may not miss a friend whom you only saw a couple of times a year or a summer vacation to Disney World.  And, deleting trivial relationships and insignificant activities from your life can accomplish a great deal.

But, there are usually a few things in life that we are attached to that we find we must also let go of . . .  if, that is, we are to create a life that even begins to match up with our dreams. We may have to break ties with a toxic parent who continues to be an unhealthy influence on our lives. Or we might have to give up our “secure” job to pursue a career that everyone else tells us is “wishful thinking”. Do you see where feeling the fear yet doing it anyway is such a powerful and essential philosophy?

The writer Anais Nin once said, “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” I think that waiting until the idea of not taking a risk becomes painful is not necessarily the wisest course of action. However, if you need to get to that point to become aware of how desperately you need to make a change or take a chance, it is a positive turn of events. I have spent my life taking risks of one kind or another, and I have oftentimes been asked by people where what they perceive to be a steadfast confidence in myself and my abilities comes from.

When I tell them that I actually have to overcome a massive amount of fear to do whatever it is that they find so remarkable, they find it astonishing. This is usually because many people assume that anyone who would dare to take a significant risk must have a sense of assurance that taking that risk will be to their benefit. But, what is the truth? Even though most of us were adventurous when we were children, as we grow up, it is nearly impossible not to be conditioned by society and those around us into believing that there are certain things we simply cannot do.

So, why do certain individuals go after goals that would seem unreachable to some and actually achieve them? Is it probable that these particular people never came into contact with anyone who discouraged them? I think both you and I know the answer to that question. If anything, those who have accomplished things of the greatest significance have had to overcome an outrageous amount of criticism and/or negativity in order to do so. What they did not generally have to overcome is a timidity of the soul that prevented them from being willing to cast aside the opinions of others and pursue their dreams regardless of anyone else’s advice or views. In the end, no matter how many times these incredible achievers listened to those who had no faith in them and their dreams–no matter how many times they allowed these naysayers to affect their behavior–they ultimately believed in themselves enough to go after what they wanted.

Whenever I speak of faith, I tend to suspect that many of you think I am talking about religious faith. But that isn’t what I’m speaking of. Although it can indeed be beneficial to have faith in a force greater than yourself, what I am talking about is faith in you. It’s so easy to exaggerate our flaws and to focus on our past failures and disappointments. After awhile, the person we see ourselves as is not the person we are but rather the person whom our decisions and actions have made us believe that we are. It takes a lot of effort and determination to let go of every negative judgement you’ve made about yourself and every preconceived idea you may be subscribing to about your abilities. Yet, until you can separate the “you” that you are from the “you” that you think you are, you will never become the person that you are meant to be. 

You have to take off those dusty spectacles through which you are seeing yourself and the world around you and put on a clean pair of glasses that will enable you to see everything the way it really is. You do want to perceive things from a realistic vantage point, don’t you? Well then, it’s essential that you be willing to let go of your limiting ideas and your narrow-minded views. Then, you can embrace the full potentiality of who you are and all the possibilities and opportunities that are waiting for you in your life.

Sure, you will make mistakes when you decide to be adventurous and take risks. Yes, you will disappoint people when your actions and choices fail to match up with what they think you should do. You will probably also not meet the expectations others have of you . . . possibly even those whose approval and acceptance you have been completely dependent on. But what’s better–disappointing everyone else or disappointing yourself?

You know in your heart that there is something right now you want to do that you’re not doing. There is a choice or a change you want to make that you are apprehensive about. Well, what is apprehension but another form of fear? It is with courage that we achieve great things.

Fear only weakens us. Although it may seem to be protecting us from making a decision that could be wrong, it is actually eroding every bit of our self-confidence. When you protect yourself, you are also shielding yourself. You are putting a barrier up between yourself and everything that surrounds you. I still maintain that it is important to guard our hearts. But there is a vast difference in preserving our emotional well-being and protecting ourselves from the universe that surrounds us.

You can be trusting and still be careful. You can be wise yet still be vulnerable. I love the verse in the Bible that says, “be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). I think that passage of scripture illustrates how well two seemingly contradictory attributes can work together. We do need to be able to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world with the innocence of a dove . . . or, as the case may be, of a child. At the same time, if we do not use discernment and wisdom in all that we do, we will be ravaged by the cruelty and brutality of those who have lost all sense of humanity.

I have perfect faith that every one of you who is reading this post is going to discover that you are capable of much more than you ever imagined. And I hope that you won’t wait another moment to let go of your mental restraints and limiting beliefs so that you can live a life without limits!

Until soon,

Alexis, the SuccessDiva

This page and all written material at the SuccessDiva pages is written by Alexis Wingate. All rights are reserved. (C) Copyright by Alexis Wingate, the SuccessDiva

In my first post, I introduced myself; and in this second one, I want to introduce “Ricky” Riccio, from whose poetry assignments comes our book, Unlocking the Poem.

Ricky has the distinction of having been born just as his parents reached America. His first love was music, and in addition to playing the saxophone in swing and dance bands, he also studied music composition; he was even told his work was so good, it must have been professional! World War II interrupted his studies, and he served in the Pacific, acting as a lending library to his buddies who made sure to keep his duffel bag safe and dry so they’d continue to have books to read.

After the war ended, Ricky worked for a time at Baker Library at Harvard Business School, collecting experience that he would then put to use as a librarian working for the US government. In due course he went to Washington, DC where he had a job lined up at the US Army Medical Library. During the interval between his arrival in Washington and the day he started work, he kept warm in the Library of Congress, largely by feasting on the poems of Hart Crane—in fact, he copied out all of Crane’s poems longhand. As Ricky himself has written in a memoir entitled “Trio,”

“I don’t regret that work one bit. . . . While I copied that magic poetry something else happened to me. The fact of the contact between paper and pencil while I pored over those copies in the Library of Congress made me aware of Crane’s work in a way that would not have been possible by simply reading those painful but inspiring poems. . . . It was as if the lines and images penetrated my skin as well as my mind, and something of Hart Crane’s mystical vision—his very spirit—became part of me and will always remain so.”

Was it absorbing the poems of Hart Crane that helped turn Ricky from the pure sounds of music to the magic inherent in words? His in-depth absorption in Hart Crane’s work gave him an education in the forms and structures of poetry, and fed a new love for the music of language. Ricky was to prove a master of both sound-music and meaning, producing poetry with rich, rolling tones and a depth of emotion.

Ricky has always been a voracious reader, and it was through his reading that he met his first personal “muse,” Anais Nin. Enchanted by a recording he found of Nin reading from her book House of Incest, he wrote to The Phoenix Bookstore asking for a list of all her work, and for a biography of her. What he got back was a personal letter from Nin. That began a correspondence, followed by visits to her Greenwich Village home. Anais Nin—the well-known diarist and poet—kept pressuring her young friend to show her his own poems. Ricky was reluctant, but she persisted. With great trepidation, he finally brought her a sheaf of his poems . . . and she gave him important advice: start being-with other poets; start workshopping, the road to strengthening the poetic work.

Ricky took Nin’s advice to heart. He was then living in West Acton, Massachusetts. He sold his house in West Acton and moved to Belmont, Massachusetts, closer to Boston; and he signed up for a workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education—a workshop that, at various times, included John Holmes, Anne Sexton, Maxine Kumin, Sam Albert, and George Starbuck, all prize-winning poets (Sexton and Kumin were both Pulitzer Prize winners). Within the workshop, he developed his own poetic voice and began publishing his poems. Eventually Ricky moved from workshop participant to workshop leader, and found—to the joy of scores of other poets—what became a major vocation. He has now led poetry workshops for forty years, and in that time has nurtured thousands of poets.

Ricky has an uncanny gift for spotting the essence of the poem in the product a student brings to workshop. Gently yet incisively, he has taught scores of others to find their own true poems, even when those true poems were sunk in unnecessary verbiage. Ricky’s major teaching tools have included his ever-creative, ever-inspiring assignments. Students fortunate enough to sit in his workshops have found whole books of poems emerging from the stimuli these assignments provided.

I count myself lucky to have had the chance to learn from such a skilled and artful teacher—a true master, not just of the craft of poetry, but of the craft of teaching. I count myself as luckier still to have had the chance to write Unlocking the Poem with him, a book of his assignments and teaching, all “illustrated” by poems written by his students. For anyone interested in writing poetry: please, take a look; there are sample pages available for downloading from this website. I think you’ll want to use what you find there to start new poems of your own—and please share them with us!

“Quanta paixão há em você! É isso que sinto em você. Não o sábio, o revelador, o observador. Quando estou com você, é o sangue que sinto.
Desta vez você não vai despertar dos êxtases dos nossos encontros para revelar apenas os momentos ridículos. Não. Não fará isto desta vez, porque enquanto vivemos juntos, enquanto você examina meu batom idelével apagando o contorno de minha boca, espalhando-se como sangue após uma operação(você beijou minha boca e ele desapareceu, o desenho dela se perdeu como numa aquarela, as cores escorreram); enquanto você faz isso, eu me agarro ao fascínio do momento(o fascínio, ah, o fascínio de estar deitada sob você), e o trago a você. Respiro-o à sua volta. Tomo-o. Sinto-me pródiga com meus sentimentos quando você me ama, sentimentos tão vivos, tão novos, Henry, não são perdidos na semelhança com outros momentos, tão nosso, seus, meus, você e eu juntos, não qualquer mulher ou qualquer homem juntos.”

Anais Nin. “Henry e June”.

 

 

We don’t see things as they are; 

Street Mandala (2009) photo: JParadisi

we see things as we are.

Anais Nin

Please note: The book thoughts on Wetlands by Charlotte Roche may not be for the faint hearted or prudish, if you would like to skip this post then you can discuss Agatha Christie just here instead.

I know it sounds a bit silly putting that at the start of the post today (though as is human nature you might all read on regardless) but I wouldn’t want to offend anyone  and with a book like this I think that its worth popping that note in first before going any further, so there is still time for you to click away. All joking aside I do think that books like Wetlands should come with some kind of warning somewhere on the book as I don’t think any synopsis could quite prepare you for what you are about to read.

Wetlands is told through the eyes of 18 year old Helen Memel from her hospital bed after an accident during a rather intimate shaving incident. Starting as she means to go on she tells us not only of just how she got into this situation but also of the last time she came into hospital to be sterilized as soon as she became of age. From then on there is a fascination with the wound itself which takes us into a graphic and incredibly explicit account of her sex life (seriously everything is discussed, I wont say too much in case I get banned on this site) and her own personal hygiene regime.

At first I will admit I was titillated and then I embraced how Charlotte Roche writes so bluntly about all things concerning women and sex. Then I started to become grossed out by it all. I didn’t need to know about the narrator’s secretions in such detail again and again, to give you an example I will use the word ‘slime’ as it is used a lot in this context. I also didn’t need to know what she thought about her Dad’s anatomy or the fact she likes to eat other people’s spots. That’s all the gory details I shall go into for fear of offending anyone who has read this far further.

As Helen discusses all these things in minute detail her character and back story briefly glimpse through and actually we have a very, very interesting narrator. Helen is clearly torn up after her parent’s separation and her mothers attempted suicide and murder of her brother and how she uses her sexuality to deal with all of these conflicting emotions in her head. It was in fact those glimpses that made me read on. It’s a book I can’t say I disliked, though I didn’t love it. 

It is a book that made me think about what constitutes a graphic, open and supposedly feminist coming or age story (though if this is what girls are going through around the world heaven help us) or a book designed to sell on how shocking and explicit it is. For me the jury is still open, I would suggest other people give it a read to decide, should they have the guts for it.

I have nothing against graphic/controversial/explicit fiction and actually think some of it is much needed to tell the tale. American Psycho, which I enjoyed and found fascinating but would be unlikely to read again because of how darkly graphic it is, wouldn’t be so powerful if it wasn’t for the parts that make for incredibly difficult reading. Novel Insights has often recommended reading Anais Nin who is a classic author and does, from the two short stories I have read so far, write graphic erotica but its beautifully written and also thought provoking.

It does seem odd yesterday was writing about Dame Agatha Christie and now this, shows I read a diverse selection I guess! So the question that this book has brought up that I shall put out there for discussion is… when does the graphic become the shocking to sell, have you any examples or feelings on this?

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell zwana Anais Nin

Hiszpańska wymowa imienia Anais kładzie akcent na ostatnią sylabę, a więc autorka Dziennika to [ana'is 'nin]. Fakt, że pisała w większości po angielsku i jest zaliczana do pisarek amerykańskich może zmylić. Sam Henry Miller wymawiał niepoprawnie jej imię, nie wdając się w szczegóły akcentu. Dla niego Anais była [anis]. Ale czego można się spodziewać po gruboskórnym, prostym chłopaku z Brooklynu? Jego wymowę można usłyszeć w filmie Henry i June Philipa Kaufmana, w którym w rolę Henry’ego wcielił się Fred Ward.

Za to “prawdziwy” Henry mówiący po francusku z amerykańskim akcentem – bezcenne!

Jednak Anais nie była Amerykanką – w jej żyłach płynęła krew duńska, francuska, kubańska i hiszpańska. Jej imię też z pewnością amerykańskie nie jest, dlatego należy stosować wymowę hiszpańską. Przy okazji można się wsłuchać, jak to robią Amerykanie, np. w moim wpisie poświęconym obchodom 105 rocznicy urodzin