Class Blog

Rural rules

This poem talks about the idea of rural homosexuality, it’s interesting to see an approach from this perspective as many people from rural communities would never be tied to the idea of being queer. The rural rules that are set in place are often set in stone, they are Christian rules of people being strong, straight, and always following the bible. Jones states in his essay that he often felt the only way to write was to pretend he wasn’t him, to dissociate himself into female or mythological characters. This is the same idea in his poem, he talks about this man who is clearly gay but cannot accept that fact of himself. Jones says on page 42, “To realize you drank so you could face me the morning after, the only way to choke down rage at the body sleeping beside you”. It’s clear this man drinks to allow himself to be homosexual and the alcohol is what disassociates himself from his sober reality that he can never be true to his sexuality or at least not without the judgement of others. His father seems to be someone who especially enforces this closeted reality. The next line states that his father abused him for either being gay or the assumption of gay tendencies. Jones says how could he understand this man’s life, how can he judge a decision to drown himself to hide from his sober self when Jones had done the same thing. His imagination of being a beautiful woman so the desire of men wasn’t homosexual to avoid the fear of being murdered like the countless men he had seen killed because of their sexuality.

In the poem Prelude to Bruise, there are many instances of repetition. There is especially a lot with the words broke/broken, boy, and with the letter B in general. Even the setting of this poem takes place in Birmingham. The word boy is also repeated numerous times and led me to think of how for many years, and even for some still today, black men would commonly be referred to as “boy” as yet another implicit way of white people expressing their feelings of superiority to them. The words mine and your(s) are also repeated many times and, I believe, are a focal point of the poem. This wording emphasizes the “us vs them” mentality even more and expresses the division between groups. An overall feeling of “your pain, your suffering, and your submission is what I profit off of and how I stay in power” is prevalent throughout Jones’ poem and a crucial idea I interpreted after my first reading. At the end of the poem, the “begin, again, bend”(22) made it seem like this is a cycle that will continue over and over again and will not break, whether that be from lack of control by the speaker or the overly inflated amount of control by an external force. Overall, I think these lines are about the division and constructed assignment of superiority and inferiority instilled in society’s views of race. This poem vividly portrays the extent of which physical, verbal, and emotional violence were used against Black Americans in an attempt to keep this order.

“The dress will survive us. The dress will be here when men come in boats to survey the damage.”

In his essay “A Poet’s Boyhood at the Burning Crossroads,” Saeed Jones speaks about how he used to write “Sad, rough little poems written in the voices of lonely, mythic people,” (Jones) specifically in the voices of women from Greek mythology, such as Medusa and Penelope. Jones wrote from the point of view of these women of legends because writing from their perspective allowed him to distance himself from his harsh realities. The passage “The dress will survive us. The dress will be here when men come in boats to survey the damage,” (Jones) comes from his poem by the name “Drag,” which paints the picture of a man wearing a dress that acts as if it is a living thing. The title itself along with the sentient nature of the dress in the poem invokes an image of a man living in the breathing disguise of a woman, which is reminiscent of how Jones used to write his poetry. 

The specific line “when men come in boats to survey the damage” cites another story from Greek mythology: the ferryman of the dead, Charon. The other half of the passage, “the dress will survive us. the dress will be here,” illustrates queer survival and strength even in the face of adversity. Overall, this line of Jones’ poem tells the story of how the legacies of queer people will continue to live on, even when death comes knocking, similar to how Matthew Shepard’s devastating story lives on in Saeed Jones’. Jones states in his essay that when he heard the horrific tragedies that befell James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard, he could only think that “being a black gay boy is practically a death wish,” (Jones) but his poetry shows he has learned that death cannot silence a legacy. 

While reading “Drag,” there was another line that stood out to me: “the dress slides with my body floating inside.” (Jones) This dress that acts as the centerpiece of the poem represents armor, something meant to symbolize the weakness of femininity in a patriarchal society made into a shield for someone who does not fit in. Jones uses his poetry to turn things that exhibit weakness, like a lovely dress and turns it into strength. He takes something as dreadful as death and transforms it into something beautiful.

“Through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets/is only the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress” (3).

Saeed Jones’s “The Blue Dress,” is describing a deep and lasting impact that his mother has on his life and his identity as a queer person and the desire to be vulnerable and to receive motherly affection.

The passage that I have chosen to examine the most deeply is, in my opinion, the most crucial part of the work. At this point in the poem, it changes from describing the dress of his mother to describing himself wearing the dress. This is a powerful moment because it is showing that he is in control of this endless flow of water—that while it has the power to flood or drown, he is being gently carried by it through the streets. Further, he is wearing the dress— the thing that he is floating in, the endless flow of water. 

It can be seen throughout the rest of the poem the juxtaposition of the dress being described as both fragile and delicate as well as ruinous and harmful. For example, the dress is described as “the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from mouths of crystal bowls and crystal cups” as well as “leaks like tears from the windows of a drowned house” (3). One can see how the water that is the dress—being described as a river flooding and filling up a house—can have completely different impacts depending on the context. It can be as delicate as drops trickling over crystal or as disastrous as water bursting out of the windows of a home. 

Because he is describing the dress of his mother, I believe this juxtaposition is referring to the influence that his mother has on him. That, like the water, she can either be loving and delicate or harsh and cruel. As Jones describes himself wearing the blue dress in this passage of the poem, he is trying to encapsulate a number of ideas. To begin with, the dress represents his freedom to express himself as a queer person, as a person who does not fit within the gender norms that are expected of him. Within this freedom, there is also a desire to be vulnerable and accepted for who he is. Before this passage of the poem he says “is a current come to carry me in its arms” (3). He is expressing a desire to be held and cared for by his mother and this dress is representing the power that his mother has to give him love, affection, and acceptance or the opposite: rejection, hatred, and neglect.

“kiss. I’ve got more hunger than my body can hold.

Bloated with want, I’m the man who waits”

-Jones (16)

In Last Call Jones highlights his longing and burning desire to be intimate, which serves as a contrast to the dark imagery within the poem; this seems representative of his simultaneous need to conceal himself from the judgmental eyes of society, where the night is the only time he can freely indulge in this intimacy. In this particular stanza, Jones begins by including the word “kiss” followed by a period, where the intentional use of the period provides more emphasis to the word “kiss”, which coincides with Jones’ yearning for physical intimacy. The usage of the word “hunger” soon after can be used to further characterize Jones’ desire. Hunger has this animalistic and raw connotation, and usually is utilized in connection to food, so in this context, the word reinforces Jones’ passion and wish to give in to this temptation. In the next line, “Bloated with want” provides a strong sense of imagery and may allude to the physical representation of Jones’ desire through an erection. Furthermore, Jones’ bloated body demonstrates a physical response and manifestation of his thoughts. The first line and first half of the second line emphasize Jones’ need to succumb to this physical encounter; however, this idea is sharply contrasted with Jones’ description of himself as a “man who waits” where his experienced desire is juxtaposed against the act of waiting. The personification of “moon to drown” in the following stanza in the poem evokes an image of the moon being enveloped by the darkness of the night. This imagery speaks to Jones’ need to hide his acts of intimacy from society which serve as a physical representation of his status as a gay man, which is not something he is unfortunately permitted to freely and openly share with the world.

In “Boy in a Whalebone Corset”, Saeed Jones describes the traumatic experience of his father catching him wearing feminine clothing and physically abusing him for it. Beyond the metaphors, Jones’s poem is about his father’s response to his expression of self and the measures that his father is willing to take to suppress Jones’s true self. Jones’s use of the line “negligee, lace, fishnet, whore.” best represents the poem as it shows his father’s perception of him. The first three words are revealing, scandalous clothing or material that is associated with sexuality, and the use of “whore” for the ending of the line shows that Jones’s father views his gender expression in a negative and demeaning light. The line “ His son’s a whore..” (Jones 12) emphasizes this shaming attitude. Aside from this theme, themes of fire versus nature, and waltzing are also present. The destructive and consuming relationship of fire and nature is used to represent the familial relationship. Like fire, his father’s attitude toward femininity and queerness is destructive and seeks to consume nature or metaphorically, Jones’s sense of self. His father’s association with fire comes from the literal description of him holding matches and a jug of gasoline as he prepares to burn Jones’s feminine clothes. (Jones 12) As for the theme of waltzing, it is connected through the mention of Nina Simone’s record playing and the rhythm of the poem is similar to one of a waltz. Jones’s waltzing to her music in dresses furthers his themes of exploration of gender expression (femininity versus masculinity) as he is going against gender expectations. Gender expectations, along with sexuality and abuse are some of the common themes of Jones’s writing. The exploration of these themes paints a picture of the joy and pain that can come with the queer experience.

In the first few lines of Thralldom, Saeed Jones uses hunger as a metaphor for desire. He says he “survived on mouthfuls of hyacinth,” which may not be poisonous in small quantities, but in the context of consuming for extreme hunger, would most likely be poisonous to the human body. It gives the idea of purposefully poisoning oneself for the sake of fulfilling desires. Running with the idea of hunger, Jones would not have been able to survive if he didn’t eat something but he chose to eat this plant that could poison him because at the very least it satisfied him. The poem is talking about the sexual experience between two men. In this case it seems to be saying that the speaker had such desires that it didn’t matter to them how the desires were filled. They took the fulfillment in any way they could, even if it was not conducive or practical. With alluding to the hyacinth, the speaker makes this connection of felling like you are nourishing or being productive to yourself in the short term, but in the long term you may actually be hurting yourself. I think there is also an interesting contrast with the idea of beauty. The hyacinth is generally a pretty flower and in many cases may not be seen to be dangerous, but can in fact be deadly. There is this same idea with desire and pleasure, which may seem beautiful from a distance, but can be truly destructive in certain circumstances. I think a lot of kids who grow up not knowing or figuring out their sexuality have a harder time deciphering this because they begin their experience a little later after spending that time figuring out and accepting themselves. This makes it easier to end up in a harmful situation that may seem beautiful because there is this desire and impatience for those experiences.

I chose this poem due to the way that it describes the family surrounding a queer child and how it can be viewed from the parental viewpoint, particularly when the parents are disapproving of their child’s identity. This can be inferred from the term “mother of sorrows”, which is used in the second stanza of the poem. In this case it seems as if the parents do not truly love their child, almost as if they see the child as a placeholder for what the child they desired could have been.  

Later in this poem is described almost in terms of the child being a parasite, with descriptions of “in the autumn of his blood, he will siphon your heart to a child dying of thirst;”, showing how the child is not only not appreciated by his parents, but treated as a future burden to the parent, a ticking time bomb that will one day turn the sweet little boy that they were expecting into a “sweet little wreck” that must be checked on in a locked room. This shows how the child will turn into the parent’s worst nightmare, at least for the parents who, in the words of Eve Sedgewick, “would rather their kids be dead than gay” 

The name of the poem is most likely derived from the themes of dread within the poem. One major cause of insomnia can be not only being woken to care for a young child, but the dread and anxiety that some parents feel when their child doesn’t fit the perfect mold of what they wanted their child to be, and in the case of this poem, it can be interpreted as having both potential causes present. This poem can be a chilling look into the minds of parents who look down upon their child’s queerness, and fail to raise the child properly. 

In Saeed Jones’ poem “The Blue Dress”, the speaker describes a dress his mother owned and how beautiful he always found it. It is a poem filled with descriptive sentence fragments that make it difficult to understand at first, but like all good poems, it slowly reveals itself over the course of several close readings.

One of the many images Jones describes is of crystal bowls and cups. He writes,

“…is goodbye in a flooded, antique room, is goodbye in a room full of crystal bowls / and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths / of crystal bowls and crystal cups…” (3).

He mentions crystal twice in these lines, indicating its significance. The location of this ‘goodbye’ is also significant. Crystal is a very formal type of glassware, often passed through generations, and reserved only for important guests and in many cases is used only for display. It is a symbol of antiquity; a symbol of “the way things were”. As such, this ‘goodbye’ becomes contextualized as a goodbye to an older way of life. In the further context of Jones’ poetry and his life, these cups and bowls represent heterosexuality and he, as a gay man, is coming to accept himself for who is. He is leaving behind the traditional life of heterosexuality that his family and society, symbolized by the antique room, expects from him.

“The Blue Dress” is a bold statement of acceptance and identity and is my favorite poem from this collection because of how bold it is. The form of the poem, with every sentence fragment starting with ‘is’, may also hearken back to Jones’ poetic beginnings, writing poems through the voices of various characters to hide his homosexuality from his parents and, perhaps, himself. However, from a close reading, it is clear to see that Jones is coming to accept himself and that he is saying goodbye, in particular, to his mother, whom he associated with the dress.