{"id":15453,"date":"2012-05-15T07:57:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T14:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15453"},"modified":"2012-05-15T10:17:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T17:17:02","slug":"a-response-to-amms-comment-on-my-publishing-a-poem-at-the-good-men-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15453","title":{"rendered":"A Response to AMM’s Comment on My Publishing a Poem at The Good Men Project (Along with the Full Text of the Poem)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a comment on my post<\/a> announcing the publication of “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer” at The Good Men Project (TGMP), AMM wrote:<\/p>\n

I visited the place a year or two ago and read a number of the articles, and they tout a version of masculinity which, underneath all the verbiage, is basically just a \u201ckinder, gentler\u201d version of the same old male privilege. I remember that he-who-must-not-be-named (but whose initials are HS) was an honored contributor, which IMHO does not speak well for it, but was entirely consistent with the rest of what was there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This made me think that, first, especially when posting the announcement on this site, I should have given an explanation for why I agreed to let TGMP publish my work, since I share AMM’s reservations, or at least I have similar ones, about what the site is all about. Second, it made me think that I should post the entire poem here so that people who will not go to TGMP will have a chance to read it if they want to. (The entire poem is below the fold.)<\/p>\n

The short explanation as to why I agreed to have my work published in TGMP is that Noah Brand, the site’s still relatively new editor-in-chief, solicited me directly. (A longer explanation is perhaps a post unto itself about what it would mean, from a feminist\/pro-feminist\/feminist-friendly perspective, to put men’s experience at the center of discussion.)\u00a0Noah is the founder–one of the founders?– of No, Seriously, What About The Menz?<\/a> (NSWTM), which appears on Alas’ blog roll. I read the blog occasionally, and while I find the comments troubling, troublesome and sometimes offensive, I think that the posts embody a discussion of men and masculinity that is both necessary and fruitful. NSWTM is, obviously, not a space where women’s issues are front and center; nor could you accurately call it a male feminist\/pro-feminist space, given that the people who comment there are often openly hostile to feminism. Nonetheless, it is in its mission a feminist-friendly space, and I think it is important and worth respecting that they are trying to have a discussion among and about men that is inclusive of all men, from a variety of perspectives, who want to engage in a respectful and thoughtful way.<\/p>\n

Which does not mean that I think NSWTM succeeds in this regard–my own experience is that it often does not–but that I respect what Noah Brand was and is trying to do there and that I respect the fact that he is trying to do the same kind of thing over at TGMP. Something he said recently in an\u00a0interview on The Jane Dough<\/a>\u00a0is worth thinking about:<\/p>\n

Women face forms of oppression and a constant barrage of microaggressions that men do not, no question. But there are also several decades and at least three waves of feminist thought and activism to help them engage with those problems. Men face different problems, different microaggressions and stereotypes, and we\u2019re still working on finding the language to talk about those.<\/strong> Feminism has the right tools for the job, but has been historically reluctant to engage with men\u2019s issues, and the thing calling itself the Men\u2019s Rights Movement is about as useful as a land war in Asia. (Emphasis mine.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I find Noah’s formulation at the end of this quote kind of awkward, I do think he’s right about this: to the extent that feminism has, rightfully, reasonably, placed women’s experience at the center of its analysis, the feminist “toolbox” will not automatically fit men’s experience, and so men need to find a language that will name our experience accurately and that will open up the kinds of analysis and transformation that accurate naming makes possible. There’s no way to know ahead of time whether TGMP will be the place where that language truly begins to take shape, but I think it’s important to be part of an attempt that is as big and as public as TGMP is. That’s why, when Noah solicited me, I agreed to send him some of my work.<\/p>\n

And now, here’s the poem. Please remember that it does contain graphic descriptions of sexual violence against both men and women:<\/p>\n

For My Son, A Kind of Prayer<\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026for they know<\/em>
\n Of some most haughty deed or thought<\/em>
\n That waits upon his future days\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014William Butler Yeats, \u201cA Prayer for My Son\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Just before his mother
\npushed him through herself
\nhard enough to split who she was
\nwide enough for him to enter the world,
\nI touched the top of my son\u2019s head;
\nand after he was born,
\nthe midwife\u2014her name,
\nI think, was Vivian\u2014
\nheld my wife\u2019s umbilical cord
\nin a loop for me to cut, which I did,
\nfreeing our new boy\u2019s body
\nto enter the name
\nwe had waiting for him;
\nand then Vivian laid him
\nagainst the curve of his mother\u2019s body,
\ngiving him to the breast
\nhe would for years
\ndefine his world by;
\nand once that first taste of love
\nwas firmly lodged within him,
\nshe bundled him tight,
\nplaced him in my arms
\nand, while I sang his welcome
\nin a far corner of the room,
\nturned to assist the doctor
\nsewing up my wife\u2019s
\nbirth-torn flesh.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember what song I chose,
\nand it\u2019s been a decade at least
\nsince I\u2019ve told anyone
\nabout my son\u2019s first moments
\nas my son, but they\u2019ve come to me here,
\nin this urologist\u2019s waiting room,
\nbecause I picked up from the coffee table
\nthe copy of The Nation
\n<\/em>another patient must have left behind,
\nand the first article my eyes fell on,
\n\u201cSilence=Rape,\u201d<\/a> by Jan Goodwin,
\nintroduced me to Shashir,
\nsix years old and gang raped
\nin the Congo. When they found her,
\nshe was starving;
\nand when they found her,
\nshe could neither walk nor talk;
\nand so they stitched together
\nthe parts of her the men had ruptured,
\nfed her, gave her clothing;
\nand that night she slept
\nfor the first time since no one knew when
\nin a bed that was not
\nthe bush the militia left her to die in;
\nand maybe the tent walls
\nshaping the room she lived in
\nwhen Goodwin learned she existed
\nhad come to mean for her
\na kind of safety; and maybe
\nthat safety was fertile ground,
\nwhere words for what the men had done to her,
\ndropped like seeds from the mouths
\nof those who rescued her,
\ncould begin to take root.
\nFrom what Goodwin wrote,
\nI cannot tell.<\/p>\n

I have not been gang raped,
\nbut a man much older than I was
\nwhen I was twelve
\nforced his penis into my mouth,
\nseared the back of my throat
\nwith what he poured out of himself
\nand sealed into silence
\neverything that took me
\nfifteen years of pushing
\ntill who I was split wide enough
\nthat who I am
\ncould speak his first true words.
\nMr. Newman?<\/em> The nurse,
\nwhite, blond, about my age,
\ncalls my name,
\none of the few she has not butchered,
\nsitting as I am among the men
\nof my neighborhood,
\nwhere names that would twist
\nthe tongue of any English speaker
\nare common. I put Shashir\u2019s story down,
\nthough Goodwin\u2019s piece
\nis about more than her:
\nMaria was seventy
\nwhen the Interahamwe
\ntied her legs apart
\nlike a goat before slaughter;<\/em>
\nand the women Goodwin leaves nameless,
\nmost of them killed by infection,
\ntheir labia pierced and padlocked
\nwhen their rapists were finished\u2014
\nthis narrative is theirs too.<\/p>\n

I put the magazine down,
\nstill bearing those women with me,
\nand rise towards the door I need to walk through
\nso I can place in this doctor\u2019s hand
\nthe left testicle I found a bump on
\nthree days ago. A few
\nof my fellow patients
\nglance up as I pass,
\none of them smiling,
\nnodding his head,
\nas if to say, Don\u2019t worry.
\nIt\u2019ll all work out.<\/em><\/p>\n

I smile back, grateful
\nfor his small empathy,
\nnoticing as I do so
\nthat the flag pin on his lapel
\nand the name of the newspaper
\nfolded over in his lap
\nplace his origin in,
\nor at least his allegiance to,
\na country now making headlines
\nfor stories like Shashir\u2019s;
\nand of course such things
\ndon\u2019t happen only
\n\u201cover there;\u201d and of course
\nnot one man in this room
\nhas ever done enough,
\ncould ever do enough,
\nto make them stop happening;
\nand as the truth of that,
\nthe guilt of that, punches me
\nin the stomach, this place\u2014
\nwhere our penises are just penises,
\nand our balls are glands,
\nnothing more\u2014
\nbecomes in my imagination
\nwhere we are supposed to be,
\na kind of purgatory
\npregnant with poetic justice.<\/p>\n

The door shuts behind me.
\nThe nurse turns a perfect about face,
\ntossing over her shoulder
\none last grin and Please, follow me,<\/em>
\nbefore leading the way in silence
\nto a room dominated
\nby a four-color poster
\nand a plastic cross-section
\nof the flaccid human male genitalia.
\nThe poster, I notice,
\nincludes the foreskin; the model
\ndoes not\u2014something
\nto ask the doctor about\u2014
\nbut when he arrives,
\nmy only thought
\nresembles a prayer.<\/p>\n

I have not prayed in decades,
\nand gave up the god I prayed to
\nsoon after I stopped,
\nbut while he snaps
\nhis latex gloves on,
\nand I let my pants
\nfall to my ankles,
\nmy underwear
\nto just below my knees,
\nand as I watch him handle
\nwhat in my wife\u2019s language
\nare called my tokhm
\n<\/em>or \u201ceggs,\u201d the scenario
\nI\u2019ve been trying not to conjure
\ngnaws at the edge of my calm.
\nWithout gonads, who would I be?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably nothing,<\/em>
\nthe doctor nods sagely,
\nstepping back,
\nremoving his gloves.
\nI pull my clothing up,
\ntuck in my shirt. Still,<\/em>
\nhe continues while I\u2019m
\nfumbling with my zipper,
\nlet\u2019s check it again
\nsix months from now.<\/em> He smiles,
\noffers his hand for me to shake,
\nwhich I do, and moves on
\nto the next man in the next room.
\nI head back out the way I came,
\nwhere my friend smiles and nods again,
\nlifting his hand in a farewell
\nI answer with my own nod and smile,
\nthe reprieve I\u2019ve just gotten
\npredisposing me not to assume
\nthe worst of anyone, though that assumption
\nwas once my only refuge,
\nthe way I imagine
\nShashir burrowing into silence
\nas the life she\u2019d survived her ordeal
\nto enter.<\/p>\n

Outside, the wind
\nrips the hood
\naway from my head;
\nsnow-gusts slap me
\nback and forth
\nacross my face;
\nand I am reminded how quickly
\nbeauty turns cold, how easily
\ndeath wears friendship\u2019s face.
\nI want to know
\nhow a man who loves his children
\ndoes not see their faces
\nin the eyes of the girl
\nwhose vagina he is opening
\nwith a bottle or a bayonet;
\nI want to know how their voices
\nwoven into that girl\u2019s screams
\ndo not paralyze his hands
\nor keep his penis soft.<\/p>\n

My son will never know Shashir,
\nbut he will know men
\nwho could\u2019ve been,
\nwho\u2019d gladly be,
\namong the ones
\nwho violated her;
\nand he\u2019ll know women,
\nand other men like me,
\nwhose bodies carry
\nviolation within them.<\/p>\n

One day, he will \u00a0be forced to choose
\nwhere his allegiance lies.
\nThese words are for him
\non the day of that decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a comment on my post announcing the publication of “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer” at The Good Men Project (TGMP), AMM wrote: I visited the place a year or two ago and read a number of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,55,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-men-and-masculinity","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15453"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15458,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15453\/revisions\/15458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}