Index of women

Gerstler (Scattered at Sea) brings her customary wit, playfulness, and emotional range to poems that expose the contradictions in ancient and contemporary concepts of femininity. These poems--some dramatic monologues, others more quiet lyrics--vividly render their chief thematic concern. Unsatisfied with "these endless ill-fitting versions of womanhood," Gerstler summons the voices of women "such as she, swallower of swords, sorrow, and semen... she who is a physical stud." Gerstler subverts the conceit of women as objects in a poem in which a tube of toothpaste, a lamp, and a butter knife all begin to criticize the speaker who muses, "How long have objects been/ nursing these grievances?" Another poem reverses the male gaze, resulting in the male object crystallizing into just another piece of art to be consumed by hungry connoisseurs: "We imbibe his rich shadow. Milky light/ showers down through skylights and we guzzle/ that too, open mouths glowing like kilns." This wonderfully intelligent and imaginative collection upends conventional gender norms in favor of illustrating womanhood in all its idiosyncrasy, complexity, and fullness. (Apr.)

Witty, conversational, ironic, Gerstler's poetry portrays everyday scenes with psychic depth. As she mixes offbeat humor and dark observations, the National Book Critics Circle Award winner (for Bitter Angel) lets her words take her wherever they will--for better or for worse. Gerstler's latest collection contains mostly language poems that work through a hallucinatory build-up of images and impressions. These come to the poet often as she's doing something mundane, like looking at her dresses hanging in the closet ("Update"), or noticing the dirty dishes piled high in the kitchen sink ("A Monument of Unwashed Dishes"), which she eventually washes while reminiscing and looking out the window. Often, the poems revolve around such womanly tasks, and as she thinks about them, Gerstler sees that they amount to what she calls "a feminine epic [that] lives in her under wraps / like a field of sheet draped statues." Throughout, she uses minimal punctuation, which inserts a swirl of energy into the poems. VERDICT As her impressions flow together, they add a surreal atmosphere, suggestive of art by Toulouse-Lautrec--as when his dancers, spectators, and settings enhance one another, contributing to a sense of mystery that, although difficult to decipher, is compelling. Recommended for most poetry collections.--C. Diane Scharper, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD

{{from an Introduction to some fragments of the Index of Women}} So, given the document's age and ravaged state, it's far from the epic we thought we'd be left by our ancestors. Where, for example, are the gods, floods, beasts, and prophesies? of these women tell me In fairness, evidence suggests that the authors of this scattershot, fragmented volume never called what they were collecting and setting down an "epic," "catalog," or "index" but instead used a term that most closely translates to "inheritance" in our language. she who holds the keys she who can speak to bees she who guards the crosswalks she who unites disparate nations and faiths will remain ageless all her days. Also uncharacteristic of a true epic is the text's intrinsic ambivalence, for instance, its mentions, often ironic, of modesty, gracefulness, purity, delicacy, civility, compliance, reticence, chastity, affability, and politeness, next to sentences like "slut" being, of course, an honorific, and when the body insists, who are you to contradict it? as well as numerous other sexual references. of these women tell me: such as she, swallower of swords, sorrow, and semen such as she who is a physical stud such as she who is born anew every second such as she who breaks speed limits such as she who represents the totality of what can be known such as she who leads mixed-gender teams into battle she who manages, no matter where she is, to keep herself clean she who was buried in her Girl Scout uniform-- sash covered with merit badges Authored over the course of generations, often under dire conditions (some type of plague may have been raging during the first few decades in which it was written), the text at times seems to mutate, containing a shifting chorus of voices singing in unison. At other times, speakers are for pages engaged in spirited debates. we loaded our battered Chevy with provisions: bedding, bottles, pots, pans, high chair, crib, then she began having second thoughts about our mission. Envision, then, a text riddled with disputed fragments, its breath smelling of cough drops, mouthwash, and cigarettes, or instant coffee, or gin, its hands shoved into oven mitts. A document that comes down to us in tatters, passages of which we are told were composed over a Royal Warrior stove in bright brave true blue!! of these women tell me: superlative examples of their kind For no reason we can find the document includes a selection of cheerful seasonal songs and several attempts to describe the sounds made by wind chimes. Tell me of the seamstress of souls of those night wanderers and root diggers of she who moves easily between worlds she who holds her teacup high over her head when victorious, laughing so hard tea splatters down her gown We had hoped to learn about ancient notions of the heroic. All we have found so far are vows, curses, recipes, regrets, prayers, elegies, love songs, tales of drug trips, protests, remedies, household hints, and practical instructions: for growing tomatoes in poor soil, for curing infections, and for easing the dying out of this life, to offer three random examples. a Girl Scout's honor is to be trusted a Girl Scout is loyal a Girl Scout is a friend to all and a sister to every other Girl Scout a Girl Scout is clean in thought, word, and deed It is impossible to tell when the last undamaged copy was lost. you are not going to get a wilting flower you are going to get a hard-charging female Perhaps it can be loosely classed as a "shattered epic"? it is recounted that women drove their cars to remote sites to mate with rivers, animals, and trees Here the page is badly damaged, with only four lines decipherable: such as she who could diagnose with her nose such as she who can say NO such as she who tends those floating in coma such as she who sees ghosts before breakfast . . . Virginity Lying down on the rug with someone and getting dust bunnies in your hair. The eloquence of long pauses. Passing notes rather than speaking. A basement fogged with pot smoke. Trying to read another body via its breathing. The idea that if you kiss someone you can taste what they just ate. Refusing to eat what your mother cooks anymore, which hurts her feelings. But you can't stand dead sautéed animal inside your mouth now, so you have to spit it out. The myth that innocence is protective. The idea of not being able to stop. Reading secret magazines a cousin stuffed into the bottom of his sleeping bag. The idea that someone curious about your body isn't interested in the private theater of your mind. Theories that there might be a kind of violence about it. How Mother insists that without true love it's just worthless humping, and the idea that for the life you aspire to, she's probably wrong. What your body has promised for so long. The idea of your disastrous premiere. The idea of someone laughing at you after. The idea of hoofprints, stampede damage, being crushed underfoot. The idea of keeping all this hidden as you slowly lotus open. Ode to Birth Control Fertility hot on my heels like a Fury, and I at that young age in such a blind hurry to embrace the opposite of what was chaste. That's where you came in--You jellies, You douches, in white pliable tubes like the family toothpaste. And You: cylindrical plastic applicator, squirting a plume of contraceptive goo on a bathroom wall that first night I fumbled with you. Ancient birth control methods include: fish bladders linen sheaths honey lint acacia leaves and my personal favorite: crocodile dung gummy substances to stop up the mouth of the womb silkworm guts were also thought useful Margaret Sanger's words clang in the head: woman as brood animal A friend sends a Victorian postcard of a large stork, bundle dangling from its beak, chasing a woman in hat and bustle as she attempts to defend herself with her umbrella. The caption reads: and still the villain pursues her Rare, that early flash of self-knowledge that while I might care deeply for other people's children, I was not mother material. Not sane enough. Ill too often. Etc. I don't believe I have to provide an excuse. And so, You, Madame Diaphragm, were pressed into service: shallow rubber cup anointed with cold-as-a-Slurpee spermicide, then folded in half and shoved up inside. The diaphragm slept in a pink plastic case that clicked shut like the hatch of a spacecraft. Diaphragm: a contraceptive device that Margaret Sanger (I will kiss her shoes if we meet in the afterlife) was jailed for smuggling into the U.S., in brandy bottles, birth control being illegal in 1918. Pamphlets or books on the topic were also banned, considered obscene. During certain years I nevertheless ached for an infant's weight to cradle, caress, longed to clone in utero the men I loved best. Nowadays, when I get my hands on a nice, juicy baby, somebody's burping, shitting little god, I tremble and pray. Some babies wave arms and legs languidly as if rehearsing water ballet. A few are as inconsolable as adults. Except a baby is never wrong. To be taken over, invaded. To swell. To harbor a being in your body who won't leave. To be a vessel, a container. To once again become secondary to a life deemed more important than yours. To host a kind of parasite. To have your organs squashed to make room for another human. Not to be alone in your body anymore, to become a form of packaging and/or housing. To be temporarily double-souled. To eat, sleep, and breathe for two. To be sapped, waylaid, stopped in your tracks. To be trapped, to have no means of escape, to be forced to (until men and women are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when they themselves desire it) become not a person but a place, a site, someone's ground zero, their very first hometown. They hide in the guest room of your womb and set up camp. And your body begins to shift for their benefit. Whether you're willing or not. Whether you have money or a place to live. Whether you can take of yourself, or These "medicines," these devices, became in my day as part of one's anatomy, one's exertions/insertions, the secrecy of secretions, the panics, narrow escapes, nightmares of being chased by armies of greedy babies. Let me alone! Forgive me! We girls stared down pharmacy clerks or squirmed in stirrups of bow tie-wearing gynecologists, bought or begged these items and prayed they'd work. or, you may eat a concoction of oil and quicksilver after the fact And You IUDs . . . Copper-7, tiny wire-wrapped numeral who caused a year of hellish cramps. Dalkon Shield shaped like a horseshoe crab. Hormone pills in roulette wheel dispensers. Plastic, rubber, and chemical protectresses, all I have to offer is this awkward song. Across the trajectory of my childless life, I call out to you now, name you and praise you. I owe you all I've tried to be. Anthem Dear blitzkrieg of wetness and breasts. Dear masseuses and muses, thighs sluiced with juices. Dear coven members posing peppery questions, like: Is a witchy third breast akin to a third eye? Can we climb into the light now from cellars and attics? Can we abandon our nectar dance temporarily, stop skimming froth off cauldrons and let our bravura arias ascend? So much depends upon shrewd, ingenious, difficult women, prodigal daughters and wisecracking wives, unwilling brides, bakers of exploding pies, giantesses in whose tresses condors nest, audacious maidens with blood on their tongues, all of whose chests house untamed hearts: How is it your beauty never departs? Tooth Fairy Sonnet I can't tolerate daylight, so I slip into the dim of kids' bedrooms at night, adorned with necklaces made of baby teeth. The color white makes me retch. I'd like to resign, become something other than a fang collector. I can fly, but only as a limp, boneless ghost, a spectral jellyfish with floating skirts, a marble quarry whirlwind. I smell of chalk dust, old dental records, ossuaries, loss, and skeletons cleaned of meat. My breath is a whiff of extinction. I have eyes like mustard seeds. No, I'm not pretty. To reach your world of porcelain drinking fountains and molar- rotting toffees, I navigate a long, winding tunnel each evening, parts of which are dark, and parts of which are the hurt pink of a sore throat. Excerpted from Index of Women by Amy Gerstler All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.