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What does it mean to be among women? As an insider, or as an outsider?
By necessity or by choice? Does being among women mean being in
community, or being alone? Jason Shinder's new poetry collection
approaches these questions obliquely. Although his language is simple,
his answers aren't.
I had heard some of these poems before, at faculty readings at the
Bennington Writing Seminars, of which I am an alumna. In the interest
of honesty, I should disclose that Jason was one of my advisors there.
He is a tremendous teacher and a kind man. This has bearing on his
book of poems only in the sense that, when one reads a book this good,
one wants to imagine that one would like the writer if one knew him in
real life. I'm here to tell you: you would.
Among Women coheres, like Donald Hall's Without or Marie
Howe's What the Living Do. This is a book about love and
loneliness, identity and loss. Despite the lofty topics, there's
nothing bombastic or overblown about these poems. In fact, it may be
the disjunction between quiet voice and intense subject matter which
makes this book hit so hard.
The first poem is a long one, but it sets up the book so well that I
am quoting most of it here:
The One Secret That Has Carried
Irene loves a man
who is afraid of sex —
she's attended
to everything,
said it was okay,
held me until I slept.
She says, Why don't you just
not think about it?
But I want to know
every sensation,
nothing untouched,
though I pull my hand away
once she's found it.
I can't be around a woman
too long,
too much.
I say, I was mistreated.
She says, A cup of tea?
I say, I can't start a thing
and then
describe the kind
of thing I'd start….
Later, I leave a note:
Sorry for the difficulties.
Meaning: how come
you don't leave?
I've never told this story.
Even at the moment
of dying,
I would say
it was someone else's.
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