AT THE EDGE OF THE BODY

Sinopsis de AT THE EDGE OF THE BODY

What might a radical feminist think now that Erica Jong has declared a truce in the battle of the sexes? "Because I believed in them,/ I found gentle men./ Because I loved myself,/ I was loved." What might a contemporary theologian say about the notion that God is dog spelled backward? "But God is all too human./ Somehow we have spelled his name/ wrong, got it backward,/ aroused his growl." No doubt the real-estate agents of America will be pleased with a poem called "House- Hunting, 1976," which proclaims: But we're sticking around, America, for the next earthquake, kissing the ground for the next Fourth of July. We love you, America, & we'll keep hunting. And the City Council may want to reproduce a poem called "I Live in New York," which asks: "How many years/ before the streets return to flowers?/ How many centuries/ before the towers fall?" This book has two poems about ecstasy, five about death and ten about art and poetry. So her fellow poets will be interested to hear Erica Jong on Robert Lowell: "a real poet/ is a mythological beast;/ but the suffering he knows/ is real." And critics and reviewers might take heed, those "wizened gray guardians of letters," who "denounce/ whatever cannot be catalogued." One of these critics is predictable enough: "He pings one on the forehead/ of the nicest poet/ because no tornado/ stands still/ long enough." But students of utopia will want to read "Flight to Catalina," if only for its tone and self-assurance: Here--where the air is clear as nothing... & the moon tastes like a peppermint-- we land. "Have we flown to heaven?" I enquired (& I meant it). With this book, Erica Jong has convincingly demonstrated that she is beyond the censure of "wizened gray guardians of letters"--or anyone else.