\u201cTo quiet this body,<\/p>\n
you must answer<\/p>\n
my tendrilled craving.\u201d<\/p>\n
(KUDZU)<\/p>\n
I believe that these lines from Saeed Jones\u2019 poem \u201cKUDZU\u201d express a queer person\u2019s desire to openly live their sexuality and be accepted by society. However, at the same time they represent the huge emotional struggle going along with the process of living openly queer.<\/p>\n
I reached that conclusion because the line \u201cto quiet this body\u201d is one hand directly referring to the lyrical I\u2019s body, but, on the other hand, it is also a metaphor for their sexuality, which is currently being hidden and not openly expressed. Additionally, the other two lines give an idea of \u00a0how hard the lyrical I is struggling to hide their sexuality and not indulging themselves in their desires. Especially the word \u201ccraving\u201d emphasizes the deep lust and is strengthened by the word \u201ctendrilled\u201d showing the rising need to break out of the system. Furthermore, the direct addressing of the reader \u201cyou\u201d and the use of \u201cmust\u201d implicates the desperate necessity of the lyrical I to fulfill their (sexual) needs.<\/p>\n
With the knowledge I have about the author, I imagine Jones writing this poem from his own experience. I assume that he is referring to society when he says \u201cyou\u201d and is addressing the struggle of being black and gay, but not being able to openly express his sexuality (yet).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cTo quiet this body, you must answer my tendrilled craving.\u201d (KUDZU) I believe that these lines from Saeed Jones\u2019 poem \u201cKUDZU\u201d express a queer person\u2019s desire to openly live their sexuality and be accepted by society. However, at the same time they represent the huge emotional struggle going along with the process of living openly … Continue reading Call for freedom<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[122675,344632],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022","tag-desire","tag-emotional-struggle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}