I wonder if anything really needs to be revived.
Mad magazine should probably be dead by 1984
rather than: $2.50 CHEAP It’s difficult
to impossible to just buy pepper. You
can get a vast amount on sale for $2.99
an exquisite amount for $1.49—nicely packaged
like a spice but it’s just pepper. The tall
waiter leans over and says: Would you like
some freshly ground pepper on your salad?
Oh yes. Leaning over to my companion —
Oh, this is nice. Dan recommends I go
to MeadowSweet and get some special Lesbian
Pepper. Pepper’s male I snort. I want
some cheap male pepper. The Village Voice
made me miserable, that damp scuzzy paper
those endless articles I should really
read and when I do I know less, wasted
a night or a morning. I boldly returned
and exchanged the Voice for Mad ’84,
at least it’s a pleasure owning that
silly gloss and will be entertained
at least once thinking: Mad’s not the same
as it used to be. Tennis anyone? The
margin was the best. Why don’t women
have back-room bars? It just wouldn’t
work, that’s why. Pepper’s male,
sea salt’s female, it takes longer
to gather, waiting for the ocean
to dry up and come back, overwhelmed by
the immensity of it. It’s nice to have
a friend like you to sit on the shore
with. Maybe I’ll bring some pepper.
From MeadowSweet. I seek adventure
today. Wound up in a hardware
store, a meeting, superette &
a bodega looking for pepper. First
today I craved cheese, then (now) I crave
fish, some sushi to go, it’s cheaper,
quick, broke again but I got my tools:
Spackle pan roller, Scotch-brite pads
Ajax, all strong names, I look strong,
I must be strong. I bought Lotto,
I left early thinking I would meet
the thing in the street, I met Leonard
bumped into Tom in a coffee shop, that
was the thought, got confused in a
hardware store, the help looked junked
out, I had to pee, walked back to
the coffee shop, asked for the
key, but the door was open. Oh, yes,
I got my hair cut today on Astor
Place, near the mall, where the pathetic
belongings of all are sold. Again &
again. Poverty’s an ocean. I bought
a pen, a red one, reddish orange.
What do you think of the Lower East Side
Art Scene. Oh I don’t know I guess
it’s great. I mean I’m not connected,
I just bumped into a guy I know is
successful. He says he’s trying to
not let it affect him, but still
I wondered if I said the right thing.
I think it’s nice the neighborhood
looks different so I don’t have to
move and my apartment’s worth more.
So now I have to paint it because
the face is depressing, the face
of poverty. You said it’s female
didn’t you? That the face of poverty
is female which is a good line. It sounds
like a good line, but it takes more than
sound to make a good line. If you could
put real truth in a line it would never
be a good line. That’s a good line.
It sounds true, doesn’t it. A good
line sounds true.
Sharon Olds
The I is Made of Paper
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Sharon Olds discusses sex, religion, and writing poems that “women were definitely not supposed to write,” in an excerpt from her Art of Poetry interview with Jessica Laser. Olds also reads three of her poems: “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” (issue no. 74, Fall–Winter 1978), “True Love,” and “The Easel.”
This episode was produced and sound-designed by John DeLore. The audio recording of “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” is courtesy of the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University.
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