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The Meter Reader: Analicia Sotelo's听痴颈谤驳颈苍听is "cheeky and tender, endearing but with teeth"

Amie Whittemore

搁别惫颈别飞别诲:听Virgin听by Analicia Sotelo (Milkweed Editions, 2018).

There鈥檚 a special kind of pleasure that occurs when a 鈥渇irst鈥� and a 鈥渂est鈥� coincide; a first-best taste of chai ice cream; a best-first date; rarely, though, is losing one鈥檚 virginity a first that鈥檚 also best. Still, I鈥檓 jealous of everyone who gets to read听痴颈谤驳颈苍听by Analicia Sotelo for the first time because this book is part-fire, part-labyrinth, part yolk spilling from its cage.

Broken into seven short sections, each building out of themes that occur in the preceding ones, the book is a delicious labyrinth. I relished following the thread of Sotelo鈥檚 thinking, her witty, heart-broken, and compassionate speakers. One early poem that sets the tone for the book is 鈥淚鈥檓 Trying to Write a Poem about a Virgin and it鈥檚 Awful.鈥� In this prose poem, which comments on itself as much as on the act of writing, particularly for the audience of a writing workshop, the speaker puts her virgin 鈥渁t the edge of the lake where the ducks were waddling along like Victorian children, living out their lives in blithe, downy softness.鈥� But the virgin 鈥渉ated her idleness鈥� and 鈥渟ome people said I should take her out of the poem. Other people said no, take her out of the lake.鈥� The speaker refuses both these pieces of advice: 鈥淚 took her to the rush of the sea鈥�I turned away鈥�.She wasn鈥檛 the shell I was after,鈥� the poem concludes, owning its choices, rendering with complexity and precision the division and confluence between subject and object, self and speaker.

This spunky self-awareness pervades the collection as it engages in lively debate and conversation with poetics and art making. An expert craftsperson, Sotelo鈥檚 similes made me swoon: 鈥渢he moon points out my neckline / like a chaperone,鈥� 鈥渆yes like ice in whiskey,鈥� and 鈥渁 kind face like a clock in the country,鈥� are just three gems. Through dramatic similes such as these, Sotelo calls attention to her performance as poet, resulting in a bravado that is at once cheeky and tender, endearing but with teeth.

Sotelo uses the motif of performance to access authenticity throughout the collection, from poems in the personas of Theseus and Ariadne, to moments in poems like 鈥淢y Mother as the Voice of Kahlo,鈥� when the speaker makes the mother a vessel through which to discuss Kahlo鈥檚 work and its relation to ideals of feminine beauty, gender, and art: 鈥渢he instinct for painting is the instinct for power鈥� and 鈥渁ll men are in love with themselves,鈥� the mother in the poem warns. As the poem approaches its end, it鈥檚 harder to tell where the speaker/mother/Kahlo voices begin and end:

& even an artist

will leave his wife behind

听

but he can鈥檛听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 if she runs harder

if she鈥檚 both听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 hunter & sacrifice

Thus, Sotelo makes the brutal argument that to be a woman artist, one must become the subject and the object鈥攖he hunter and the hunted.

Even though these poems present dark truths, they are remarkably buoyant. In 鈥淢y Mother & the Parable of the Lemons,鈥� the mother, building on sentiments in 鈥淢y Mother as the Voice of Kahlo,鈥� indicates that marriage is when 鈥渟omeone is always well prepared // for the sacrifice, and someone else / is the sacrifice.鈥� This skeptical commentary on romantic entanglements pervades the collection, with Sotelo鈥檚 speakers often joking about bad luck with men: 鈥渨hy does the twenty-first century feel like this? / Like men are talking into / their favorite phonograph / & the phonograph is me,鈥� she writes in 鈥淢y English Victorian Dating Troubles.鈥� These problematic power dynamics between men and women are further highlighted in the Ariadne and Theseus poems, Ariadne counseling that 鈥渨hen a man tells you he鈥檚 a monster, / believe him鈥� in 鈥淎riadne Discusses Theseus in Relation to the Minotaur.鈥� In these rejections of and warnings about heterosexual romance, Sotelo鈥檚 speakers step fully into their power; in this way she reclaims the word 鈥渧irgin,鈥� as she seeks 鈥渧ersions鈥� of self鈥攑articularly a female-bodied self鈥攖hat are not defined exclusively by their relationships to men. Sotelo champions reclamation of and celebration of a self-determined identity: 鈥淚 am completely in character,鈥� she writes in 鈥淢y English Victorian Dating Troubles.鈥� It is this vulnerable confidence, the daring yet tender proclamations that听痴颈谤驳颈苍听offers, that transforms what might be maudlin into moxie in its examination of various wounds. It is feisty and fabulous. It makes me want a first time with it all over again.