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Say it Again! Saxon!: The Erotic Intimate Space of Reading

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Marianne Noble explores Emily Dickinson’s celebration of the neurological and emotional intimacies of reading in the context of mid-nineteenth-century Anglo-American literary culture.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 18, 2024

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This video video provides a detailed overview of the life and work of American poet Emily Dickinson, highlighting her significance as a major figure alongside Walt Whitman. Born in 1830 and passing in 1886, Dickinson spent most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she received a good education. Despite her literary prowess, she was largely unrecognized during her lifetime, with roughly 1,800 poems discovered posthumously by her sister, Lavinia, leading to a posthumous publication that garnered immense acclaim.

The speaker elaborates on Dickinson's relationship with literature, her reading habits, and her intimate correspondence with close friends. Dickinson's poetry, which reflects the Romantic era, incorporates a sense of intimacy and emotional depth, resonating with the belief that an author's presence is infused in their work. The speaker analyzes the sensual and tactile qualities of Dickinson's poetry, emphasizing its unique style and the emotional responses it elicits.

Specific poems are discussed, illustrating themes of intimacy and eroticism. The idea that reading is an intensely communal and intimate experience is emphasized, likening the relationship between the reader and the text to a kind of erotic communication. The speaker posits that through Dickinson's work, a "non-normative" and queer form of eroticism is presented, focusing on the experience of the poem itself rather than any traditional climax.

In conclusion, Dickinson's poetry is positioned as a vital exploration of intimacy that invokes deep emotional and sensual engagement, distinguishing her work from more conventional forms of erotic expression.

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So Emily Dickinson was, the greatest American poet

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that ever lived along with Walt Whitman.

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Uh, she, she was born in 1830 and died in 1886.

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Uh, so she was writing in the middle of the romantic era.

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She, she lived in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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Uh, she was born to an influential family in that town.

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And, so she was well educated.

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Her family, they were, you know,

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an influential family in the town.

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They were involved with, Amherst College.

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And so she was too, she had a good

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education at Amherst Academy.

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Uh, she went to Mount Holyoke College for one year,

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and then, she didn't, she didn't stay there.

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She returned home partly because of ill health.

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Partly I think she was homesick.

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She says her father didn't want her to stay.

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So she came home and,

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basically stayed home for the rest of her life.

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Um, she had some intimate, very close intimate relationships

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with a small number of people.

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Um, and then, and so she wrote letters to them.

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And, and then she, so she,

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I, I, I, I think that her life was really

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a life of literature.

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So she read all the time extensively, everybody,

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Emerson and Hawthorne and Longfellow,

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and then all the, the Brits, Keatts.

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And, Byron Shelly,

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Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

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She, she loved all of the British and American poetry.

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She also read, you know, fiction.

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She loved Bronte, George Elliot, people like that.

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So, yeah, so she didn't really,

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so basically she had a life of, of literature, I would say.

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Uh, when she died, her sister

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and maid discovered in her her drawer, 1,700

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and some odd poems, like a lot.

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And everyone knew that she was a poet,

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but they were not aware of the extent of what she had done.

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And it was really very thrilling discovery.

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And, so Lavinia, her sister,

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made sure to get it published.

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She pu the first edition came out in 1890, so six years

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after her death, or four years after her death.

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Uh, and, and it just, it exploded.

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It took the literary world by storm, which is awesome.

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Stephen Crane admired it.

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William Dean Howells, wrote,

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reviewed it very enthusiastically.

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Um, Henry James really liked it.

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So it was, it was, it was quite exciting.

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Um, and, you know, and

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'cause she was completely unknown until after her death.

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So, let me, let me just tell you,

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a little story about this.

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So, when she was 32, she read an essay called Letter

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to a Young contributor by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

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He was a, well-known literary critic,

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radical abolitionist ex minister.

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And he had published this in the Atlantic Month,

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and it was called Letter to a Young contributor,

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encouraging people to send him their poetry

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and to just to publish, really trying to encourage people

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who might be be seeking publication.

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And so Dickinson wrote him.

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She reached out to him and,

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sent him a number of her poems.

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Uh, and we don't have his letter back to her,

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but we have her, the letter she returned to him.

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And in that letter, she says that, you know, you,

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you say, I shouldn't publish.

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Okay? Uh, I don't really wanna publish,

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although I think, why else would she have written him?

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So, and then she said, you know, he said, you know, you say,

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my, my gait is spasmodic.

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And, and she says, I have no tribunal.

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And so it makes it sound like her, you know, her, the meter

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of her poetry is rough,

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and it is in fact, it can be jarring, often,

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and that it's deliberate on her part.

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And she could very easily have smoothed things out,

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but, you know, chose to do it differently.

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But I think he probably meant that she was influenced

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by a cool, a school called the Spasmodic.

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It was a fad, in 1840s and fifties

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and kind of dying in the sixties.

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But spasmodic poetry was,

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a group they were really interested in very,

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very powerful poetry.

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So it was very emotionally overwrought,

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and the meters were just crazy, really outrageous.

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So they were really experimental.

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This is the end of the romantic era.

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Um, it's like, you know, it's the tail end of it,

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and it's just things are very fervent,

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very emotional, very florid.

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And I think that he, you know, was probably suggesting

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that affiliating her with the Spasmodic School

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of Poetry, right?

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So, so again, so she's a romantic,

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she's writing in the romantic era.

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At the time, there was a strong belief

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that poetry was really intimate, that,

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or literature in general.

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And people, they felt

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that the writer himself was actually

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encapsulated into what he wrote.

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Um, so, so for example, Walt Whitman, you know, he wrote

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Rado, this is no book.

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Who touches this, touches a man. Is it night?

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Are we here alone together? Is it I you hold?

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And who holds you? I spring from the pages into your arms.

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So, I mean, it's really wonderful

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and outrageous, this idea

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that the poet himself is in the book.

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Um, and, but Dickinson felt the same way.

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Um, and she valued books, you know, for the intimacy

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that she, that she thought she could

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experience with the author.

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Um, and, and it was, you know,

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so it was part of the era.

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Um, so Lydia, Mariah Child said, all how all alive,

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the book is glowing

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and effervescent, like champagne poured out in the sunshine.

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So I think that Dickinson wanted to write works like that.

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She wanted to write works that were alive,

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that were passionately alive.

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She said in one poem that, she compares poets

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to magicians and their, you know, and their,

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and their poetry is magic.

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And she says, magic hath an element like deity to keep.

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And so she wants to create poetry that, that keeps

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that magic alive.

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And so Higginson in that

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Essay that I mentioned before, he said

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that good writing is so saturated with warm life

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and delicious association,

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that every sentence shall palpitate

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and thrill with the mere fascination of the syllables.

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And I think that that's why she reached out to him.

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'cause that's what she was trying to do was,

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and she's like, okay, here's somebody who gets it.

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And he, you know, he knows he's a pro.

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He can tell me if my stuff has, you know, warm life.

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So she wrote him the first letter that she wrote,

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said, dear Mr.

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Higginson, are you too deeply occupied to say,

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if my verse is alive, the mind is so near itself,

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it cannot see distinctly, and I have none to ask.

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Should you think it breathed

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and had you leisure to tell me I should

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feel quick gratitude?

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And, and so what I wanna lean on is the idea

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that her verse is alive and that it reads.

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It's really what she's trying to do.

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And she's in keeping with, with her era, right?

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So iterate, you know, many poets

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and theorists for the era were really interest.

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They believed that good.

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The, the good verse did that, that it had an aliveness

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of itself, that it kept the poet alive.

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And so, you know, so the GH Lewis,

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who's the, the partner of Marianne Evans, who we know

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as George Elliot,

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he wrote a whole study on the physiological effects of books

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on the nerves of readers.

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Um, he's very interested in just how they work on our bodies

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and at the center of everything as a nervous system.

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Uh, and, he felt that

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because we all have the same nervous systems,

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books affect us the same way,

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because we're all kind of like touched by this.

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And so there's a kind of a community, he says, that's formed

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of readers because we read, we get the same sort of nervous

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stimulus, which is the book,

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and it acts similarly upon our nerves.

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And there's a, a unifying effect that happens.

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And he's very, he's very interested in that.

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And so Dickinson too is really interested in

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those intimacies.

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So, you know, different, I think

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that Dickinson's poems are unique.

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They're really very different from other

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poetry in my experience.

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And I'm really, I believe that they breathe.

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I believe that they have that vitality that she sought.

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They really, for me, are very singular,

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and I'm really interested in trying to understand

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what it is, what she does that makes her poems have

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that all alive quality, that makes it so satisfying.

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And so I think that her poems are sensual in many ways,

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and they create an intimate experience by,

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they bring disparate elements together.

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It's almost like going into a room.

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Um, I compare it to going into a room there.

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So there's various, you know, qua syntactic or syntactic

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and sensual qualities.

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So, and so in the study that we're talking about,

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I do a, a reading of a poem.

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And so I'll, I'll read the poem for you. It's quite short.

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So, so it's goes like this.

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All the letters I can write are not fair as this syllables

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of velvet sentences, of plush depths of ruby

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untrained hid lip for the play.

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It we a hummingbird and just sipped me.

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So that's very, it's an unusual poem.

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It's, it's, it's suggestive, but it's not like clear.

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It doesn't just pop the way a Hallmark

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card might pop for you.

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It's like, it's interesting, it's provocative,

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but it's not entire clear.

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So it's helpful when we begin to think about the poem

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to know that when she sent it to her cousin, Mrs.

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Yosha Flint, and accompanying the poem was a flower.

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So when she says, all the letters I can write are not,

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is this, she's comparing her poem to the,

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to a flower, right?

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And so, so poems are like flowers, she says, so poems

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and flowers have syllables of velvet.

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Um, yeah. So flowers is a poem. It has syllables.

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And then she says sentences of plush.

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So flowers communicate, you know, with sentences,

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but poems are like flowers.

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So they have syllables of velvet, sentences of plush.

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So there's, there's really, just, I don't know what

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an interesting, I would guess, connection between poetry

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and flowers that, that she develops here.

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So, so I think that, so we imagine this flower, right?

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She says, she goes on, she, so we have these syllables

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of velvet, these sentences of plush,

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and then she goes on depths of ruby untrained hid lip

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for thee, right?

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So the flower itself has depths of ruby inside of it,

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and we're invited to imagine that in interior.

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Um, and, and she says, hi lip for these.

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So we're invited to, to go into it, as it were, or,

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or sip it with our lips, right?

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To kind of suck the nectar out of it.

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So we kind of enter into, there's an, there's a kind

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of entering that goes on where we're entering the flower,

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entering the poem, right?

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And so I, I think that it's, she's creating a space, a kind

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of an imagined space that we go into.

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And in this imagined space, we encounter these sensual

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and tactile, images.

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They're, you know, it's very tactile, right?

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The poem has a lot of sensual qualities as well.

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Um, so, it's got a repetition of l sounds.

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She says letters, syllables, velvet, and lip.

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And then, so that, that creates, I think,

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a really liquid quality for me.

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The poem is very liquid. All the letters I can write are not

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fair as the syllables of velvet sentences of plush.

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So then she's got the repetition of the s's, the syllables

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and sentences and sipped,

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and then a repetition of it hid lip it and sipped.

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And then there's also this image of depths

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of ruby untrained.

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It's actually a really interest, it's interesting sonically,

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because it's D-R-D-R-D depths of ruby untrained.

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And when you say it, it has a sensual feeling as you say it,

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depths of ruby untrained. Um, it just,

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It puts all of this, I think, onto your,

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into your lips as you read it.

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And so reading the poem is, you know,

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it makes its mark on your body as,

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as you put it into your mouth.

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It also has a, a pretty pronounced and interesting rhythm.

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So she says, it goes all the letters I can write, so

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that's dump, da, dump, da, dump, dump, dump.

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And that, that is repeated. Um, r not fair is this.

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So she leaves off the syllable at the end,

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but syllables of velvet, sentences of plush, they're unusual

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because every line starts with a beat, with a stress.

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Um, and then it moves dbi.

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So normally I would go, dumb, dumb, dumb,

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but it's, anyway, so,

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so it's pretty pronounced.

12:36.785 --> 12:38.725
Um, and you know, again, I think that it, that,

12:38.725 --> 12:41.685
that exerts its impact on the body of the reader creating,

12:41.785 --> 12:44.005
sort of sensual experience as we read it.

12:45.005 --> 12:47.345
So then the other thing that I wanna say about the,

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you know, the intimacies of this poem is

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that I think that they're queer.

12:51.175 --> 12:53.425
It's not merely sensual and intimate,

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but it has a queer eroticism.

12:55.965 --> 12:59.625
You know, notably it, you know, it's got lips, you know,

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you're like sipping, you know, so la labia

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or you know, that female, then a genitalia.

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And then that depth of ruby, I think also suggests a kind

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of, you know, vaginal quality.

13:11.925 --> 13:13.825
And then we've got lips and sipping

13:13.965 --> 13:17.065
and all of this kind of liquid quality of the poem itself.

13:17.645 --> 13:20.305
It creates a, just a, a queer erotic feeling.

13:20.425 --> 13:21.625
I think it, in any event, it's more,

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I would say about female eroticism than it is about sort

13:25.745 --> 13:27.665
of conventional phallic eroticism.

13:28.245 --> 13:30.625
But the reason that I also, you know,

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so maybe it could just be female,

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but I think that it's queer also in the sense

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that it doesn't privilege kind of a phallic penetration

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of the flower that gets to the end of the flower that kind

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of gets there and discovers that prize at the heart of it,

13:44.975 --> 13:47.905
there's a quest, right, for that heart of the, of the poem

13:48.285 --> 13:49.465
or the heart of the flower.

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But it never gets there

13:50.735 --> 13:55.185
because the heart of the thing is actually like the, the

13:55.375 --> 13:57.625
what we, what we might think of as the foreplay, right?

13:57.625 --> 14:00.145
The kind of like the sensuous touching that precedes.

14:00.145 --> 14:03.025
But there's no, there's no telos, there's no culmination.

14:03.725 --> 14:05.425
So, and I'm not alone in thinking this,

14:05.565 --> 14:07.705
I'm actually taking this idea from Margaret Holmans.

14:07.925 --> 14:09.985
But you know, the idea is that, that it,

14:10.175 --> 14:12.385
that it undoes conventional hierarchies

14:12.445 --> 14:15.785
of male female sexuality, creating a more female

14:15.965 --> 14:17.625
to female erotic communication.

14:18.445 --> 14:19.885
Um, yeah.

14:20.265 --> 14:24.165
And so, you know, so ultimately I feel because of, you know,

14:24.165 --> 14:27.485
because of the, the sensuality, the feeling of the space

14:27.505 --> 14:31.965
of the poem itself, some of the erotic imagery,

14:32.425 --> 14:35.525
the, the erotic awkwardness of the, of, you know,

14:35.585 --> 14:36.925
the terms themselves.

14:37.265 --> 14:40.245
That's why I think the poem is all alive, right?

14:40.275 --> 14:43.405
Like what Lydia, Mariah, child blowing effervescent,

14:43.405 --> 14:45.525
like champagne poured out in the sunshine.

14:46.145 --> 14:49.645
So, you know what, one of the things that I think Dickinson,

14:49.745 --> 14:50.965
suggests is

14:51.085 --> 14:54.685
that textual erotics are actually more erotic than

14:54.685 --> 14:56.005
conventional erotics.

14:56.585 --> 14:59.005
Um, that, that, you know, or,

14:59.005 --> 15:00.885
and I don't know about conventional erotics,

15:00.885 --> 15:02.645
but in any event, conventional intercourse, it's

15:02.645 --> 15:05.205
so often when we're together, things are shallow.

15:05.755 --> 15:08.165
It's all about posing and just appearance.

15:08.385 --> 15:11.925
And, but when you have a good book, it touches you

15:11.945 --> 15:13.405
so deeply in so many ways.

15:13.945 --> 15:15.965
And you have this intimate communication

15:15.965 --> 15:17.085
with the author themself

15:17.105 --> 15:19.325
and maybe other au readers at the same time.

15:20.185 --> 15:23.245
And so, so, you know, I think she tries, you know,

15:23.285 --> 15:25.665
I think, I think she suggests that,

15:26.005 --> 15:28.505
and she's not alone in suggesting that I, in fact, you know,

15:28.505 --> 15:30.465
Henry David Thoreau felt much the same way.

15:31.045 --> 15:32.065
Um, that, you know, reading,

15:32.065 --> 15:34.225
reading in particular is really intimate.

15:34.375 --> 15:37.945
It's erotic, and it's, it's not ace, it's not solitary.

15:38.015 --> 15:40.585
It's a deeply communal, communal experience.

15:41.245 --> 15:43.585
So, you know, there's another poem that I write about in my,

15:43.685 --> 15:47.825
in the essay, and, do I, shall I read it?

15:48.975 --> 15:50.865
Yeah. Okay. So it goes like this

15:53.185 --> 15:56.435
many a phrase has the English language I have heard,

15:56.435 --> 16:00.315
but one low is the laughter of the cricket loud

16:00.415 --> 16:04.955
as the thunder's tongue murmuring, like old cassian choirs,

16:05.185 --> 16:09.625
when the tides alone saying it's itself in new inflection,

16:10.295 --> 16:14.305
like a whipper will, breaking in bright orthography on my

16:14.305 --> 16:17.785
simple sleep thundering its perspective till I stir

16:18.205 --> 16:21.825
and weep, not for the sorrow done me, but the push of joy.

16:23.045 --> 16:27.425
Say it again. Saxon hush only to me.

16:28.765 --> 16:29.965
I love this poem so much.

16:30.605 --> 16:33.805
I, you know, the ending to me, I think is just so funny.

16:34.305 --> 16:36.405
She says, say it again, Saxon,

16:37.145 --> 16:39.565
and maybe like her lover, she's calling her lover.

16:39.565 --> 16:40.965
The, you know, it's a, it seems like a love poem.

16:40.965 --> 16:42.965
They're in bed together maybe, and maybe she's calling him

16:43.385 --> 16:45.365
or her Saxon, right?

16:45.665 --> 16:48.245
But it's also, so it's like, say it again, sex in,

16:48.245 --> 16:49.525
but then at the same time, it's like,

16:49.985 --> 16:52.045
say it again in plain English.

16:52.155 --> 16:56.245
Like, give me just the straight stuff. Talk to me baby.

16:56.705 --> 17:00.045
You know, like, don't, don't do anything else.

17:00.185 --> 17:01.405
You know, like, let's not have sex.

17:01.455 --> 17:03.205
Let's talk, you know,

17:03.325 --> 17:05.485
or like, let's have a really interesting

17:06.195 --> 17:07.765
poem about eroticism.

17:07.825 --> 17:10.125
And so the poem is very erotic, you know, she's like,

17:10.505 --> 17:12.445
she says, many a phrase has the English language,

17:12.445 --> 17:14.805
and maybe, maybe the hidden phrase is, I love you.

17:14.835 --> 17:17.565
That seems possible. My students think so.

17:17.905 --> 17:20.245
She says, I've only heard one, one phrase,

17:20.665 --> 17:22.805
and it's low is the laughter of a cricket.

17:23.705 --> 17:25.285
And so crickets are quiet, right?

17:25.285 --> 17:27.485
They make a low noise, but it's like, it's a laughter.

17:27.665 --> 17:31.545
And so that's really, we just imagine that,

17:31.605 --> 17:33.305
but it's at the same time, it's loud

17:33.325 --> 17:35.265
as the thunder's tongue, right?

17:35.405 --> 17:38.865
And so it's both quiet and loud at the same time.

17:39.005 --> 17:42.265
And so, you know, there's some sensual imagery

17:42.265 --> 17:43.545
that we're invited to experience,

17:43.545 --> 17:46.105
and then it murmurs like old Caspian choirs.

17:46.725 --> 17:49.145
So we don't really know Caspian, what is Caspian?

17:49.195 --> 17:52.365
It's sort of eastern and exotic in some way, right?

17:52.385 --> 17:55.845
But Caspian inquires that murmur when the tides are low.

17:56.465 --> 17:57.685
And then it's like a whipper will,

17:57.685 --> 17:59.285
which is a very emphatic whipper will

17:59.285 --> 18:00.405
whipper will whipper will.

18:00.625 --> 18:03.005
So it murmurs, but at the same time, it's very emphatic.

18:03.025 --> 18:05.525
So there are these interesting contradictions,

18:05.525 --> 18:07.925
and we kind of inhabit them as we read the poem

18:08.425 --> 18:09.725
and just imagine these things.

18:10.585 --> 18:12.405
Um, and then, you know, she says it,

18:12.505 --> 18:16.205
it breaks in bright orthography on my simple sleep, right?

18:16.225 --> 18:18.165
So there she is in bed, right?

18:18.165 --> 18:21.405
And it's breaking on her like orthography, which is,

18:21.405 --> 18:23.645
you know, the, this, the idea of correct writing.

18:24.425 --> 18:27.285
Um, and it just breaks. So this writing breaks on her,

18:27.865 --> 18:31.205
you know, until, you know, until she stirs and weeps, right?

18:31.265 --> 18:33.685
So you're, and but not from sorrow, from joy,

18:33.715 --> 18:34.765
from the push of joy.

18:35.345 --> 18:36.925
And so, you know, there's a lot of,

18:36.985 --> 18:40.245
and again, we have some erotic, a cluster

18:40.345 --> 18:42.565
of erotic images like laughter

18:42.665 --> 18:46.165
and the thunder's tongue, the tide, you know,

18:46.555 --> 18:47.765
it's lulling quality.

18:47.895 --> 18:51.325
She's in sleep, and then she stirs and weeps, you know?

18:51.325 --> 18:52.725
But what is it that is, you know,

18:52.965 --> 18:54.205
creating this erotic experience?

18:54.205 --> 18:55.485
It's this poem, right?

18:55.485 --> 18:56.525
It's the poem itself

18:56.525 --> 18:59.205
and the sororities of it that are just, thrilling.

18:59.825 --> 19:01.295
So yeah.

19:01.635 --> 19:05.055
So, yeah, that's what I've got.

19:05.115 --> 19:07.815
So, so again, so the point I would say is the sensual

19:07.925 --> 19:11.975
encounter with the poem itself, rather than some climax,

19:12.065 --> 19:16.845
which is what I think makes it, non-normative,

19:16.865 --> 19:18.725
in some way and non-normative sexuality.

19:18.905 --> 19:20.565
Um, and, and feminine

19:21.105 --> 19:24.405
and queer creating, you know, I think spaces for a queer

19:24.545 --> 19:26.045
or a different kind of eroticism.

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