CONTEMPORARY BRITISH POETRY-sex, gender,embodiment-poems.docx

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH POETRY: GENDER, SEX, EMBODIMENT

You’re Beautiful

by Simon Armitage

You’re beautiful

because you’re classically trained.

I’m ugly because I associate piano with strangulation.

You’re beautiful because you stop to read the cards in newsagents’ windows

5 about lost cats and missing dogs.

I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly-stick and a big stone.

You’re beautiful because for you, politeness is instinctive, not a marketing campaign

I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide.

Ugly like he is,

10 Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

Ugly like his,

Beutiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

15 You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the power of thought.

I’m ugly because I proved God to be a mathematical impossibility.

You’re beautiful because you prefer home-made soup to the packet stuff.

I’m ugly because once, at a dinner party,

I defended the aristocracy and wasn’t even drunk.

20 You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.

I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four hour rolling news.

Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

25 Ugly like his,

Beautiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as funerals.

I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from a different world.

30 You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour including red.

I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the acquisition of material goods.

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets

lined up to peep over the rim of yiour cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light

at your miniature feet.

35 I’m ugly for saying ‘love at first sight’ is another form of mistaken identity,

and that the most human of all responses is to gloat.

Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

40 Ugly like his,

Beautiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a car-wash.

I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.

45 You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third world.

I’m ugly because I remember the telephone numbers of ex-girlfriends

and the year Schubert was born.

You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo.

I’m ugly because when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a circus tent.

50 Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

Ugly like his,

Beautiful like she is,

55 Ugly like Mars.

You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in a uniform and laugh.

I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life.

You’re beautiful because you drink a litre of water and eat three pieces of fruit a day.

I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a beautiful woman with one eye.

60 You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition and you know how to lose.

I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup then held it up to the crowd.

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top buttonhole of your cardigan.

I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a muscleman in a dress.

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.

65 I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb, so when they look up,

the captains of vessels in distress see the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox,

or the legs of a galloping black horse.

Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

70 Beautiful like Venus,

Ugly like his,

Beutiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

Ugly like he is,

75 Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

Ugly like his,

Beutiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

I once read that poem in Liverpool and a lady came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m ugly as

well.’

Havisham

by Carol Ann Duffy

Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then

I haven’t wished him dead. Prayed for it

so hard I’ve had dark green pebbles for eyes,

ropes on the backs of my hands I could strangle with.

Spinster. I stink and remember. Whole days

in bed cawing Noooo at the wall; the dress

yellowing, trembling if I open the wardrobe;

the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this

to me? Puce curses that are sounds not words.

Some nights better, the lost body over me,

My tongue fluent in its mouth in its ear

Then down till I suddenly bite awake. Love’s

Hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting

in my face. Bang. I stabbed at the wedding-cake.

Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon.

Don’t think it’s only the hear that b-b-b-breaks.

The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping

By Grace Nichols

Shopping in London winter

is a real drag for the fat black woman

going from store to store

in search of accommodating clothes

and de weather so cold

Look at the frozen thin mannequins

fixing her with grin

and de pretty face salesgals

exchanging slimming glances

thinking she don’t notice

Lord is aggravating

Nothing soft and bright and billowing

to flow like breezy sunlight

when she walking

The fat black woman curses in Swahili/Yoruba

and nation language under her breathing

all this journeying and journeying

The fat black woman could only conclude

that when it come to fashion

the choice is lean

Nothing much beyond size 14

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