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Poems by Oksana Vasyakina and Elena Kostyleva

2022; Duke University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/10418385-9669503

1938-8020

Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia

Oksana Vasyakina and Elena Kostyleva are contemporary Russian poetesses who contribute to Ф-письмо (F Letter), a digital platform that publishes, critiques, and celebrates feminist writing.1 Their work is testament to a generational change in Russophone poetry, which has seen a decline in the certainties and declamatory style of the previous generation in favor of all-embracing polyphony and linguistic experimentation, an ethical commitment to decolonization and leftist politics, and a strong focus on diverse spectrums of gender and sexuality.Vasyakina’s “Girl” is the latest in a series of poems that trace the trials, tribulations, joys, and hopes of the author’s own biography. The poem was published not long after her debut novel, Рана (Wound), a hybrid text that includes essays, poems, and novelistic plot devices and enters into dialogue with several female thinkers, both past and present. Staged as an intimate conversation between lesbian partners, “Girl” imagines two women having a biological baby together: the physical sensations of extracting spinal cells, implanting an embryo, and sensing the life force of a partner inside the womb. The fabric of the verse delights in the feelings of closeness and warmth that emanate from both the act of communication and the displacement of normative conceptions of reproduction and the creation of life. “We live an ordinary life,” the poem begins, in a powerful reframing of the limits of the ordinary. Vasyakina’s biological vision is renewed, expanded, and liberated from any association with the male.Kostyleva, in her poem “Morning,” constructs a Freudian riff on the implications of contemporary porn for ethics and conceptions of humanity, focusing on Pornhub as the locus of fantasy, timelessness, storytelling, and psychic transformation. The work intersects with the paranormative at the borders of what is ordinarily considered human, as the figures in the verse vacillate between incarnations of people and flamboyant, folkloric/nightmarish creatures. Kostyleva’s interweaving of psychoanalysis and philosophy in this poem echoes much of her previous work, which is influenced by her own practice as a psychoanalyst. Here, dissociation, loneliness, perversion, and desire fuse together, making the poem as much about the human psyche as it is about the body and its capabilities and constraints.Girlwe live an ordinary lifethe blisters on your toe stingand i repeat after you: yes it hurts, yes it’s unbearable, it will stop soon hang oni touch your dark curly headand my hand grows into a huge maternal handi bring you a basin of icy water so you can soak the soles of your feetand i stand there, hands on hips, waiting for the pain to subside at least a littlei want to engulf you whole like a serene ship and carry you through the paini want to engulf everything that’s alive herebecome a mother to all living thingsi’m growing bigger and the membrane of my body shivers, before long i will become this worldi know your warmth i know how your body fills everything in the space of the room with meaningthere’s a bond between usslow invisible tentacles caress each other and gleam in the darknessand pierce my stomach they stroke everything inside, unrelentingi feel you inside my cheek, my thighyou pierce inside meyour dry scent your skin murmurs beneath my handyou smell like straw, tar, and barki know what your head smells likeand the scent of your mouth tooi know youi like to press my whole face into your soft stomachand lie like that, feeling you undeniably aliveyou’re alive and everything inside you is relentlessly alivemy friend is carrying a baby inside her i see how her body has changedshe’s becoming a full-grown, ripening woman she’s maturing like an elongated pearand we speak about the babyabout our little girl, mine and yours,she’ll look like me because i’m going to carry herbut if you give me your egg celli can carry you inside myselfour girl will drink milk from my breast and grow inside mei’ll feed her with my body and my warmthyou’ll be therewhen the sharp needle implants the seed in the wall of my uterusand i feel the paini’ll be therewhen they take out your egg cellsand you feel the painsomewhere far away there’s an experimental labwhere scientists have discovered how to extract the raw material for conception from women’s spinal cordsyou can take some stem cells, then, after a long procedure where you insert the mitochondria, you inject them into the egg cellthen, they say, two women will be able to have a babyand it has to be a little girl because in a female set of chromosomes there’s no Y-chromosomea little girl who will be me and you but differentour number threebut for now it’s just an experimentthey say yes one day in fifty years or so it will be possiblei’ve never tried it but i know that taking cells from the spine is unbearably painfulmaybe they’ll figure out how to make it painlessi close my eyes and imaginea girl with your coarse, wiry hairyour radiant olive skin and dark brown eyes, pupils blurred into irisesthere’s something elusive and mine in the girli recognize heri’m longing for herand she’s here somewhere between us, the walls already echo her voiceand her warmth beats against my chest, i can feel itMorningThe man-knight fucks the woman-birdShe’s only woman down below, her plumageis lush black feathers—they hide her face(“Either a bird or a cat or a dame is mine”)(there was only one songin prehistoric times)The essay by contemporary philosopher Nick Land,“A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism,”Begins by saying that we’re too lateThat we’re too slow forToo slow, fuck, the time for contemplation is overSuch a shameWill I manage to die?Everyone else has managed somehow—that calms meA dull, mechanical spider-monster, diligent as a lawnmowerI stopped watchingBeast, a real-life succubus with canine paws,that split at the groin into two round, woolly musclesMonstrosity—and the girl, all white, her breasts dazzling whiteBlue eyes, an Esenin birchJust like fucking Gianni RodariHis member is like a big, stretched-out strawberry(berry berry)very like Nick Land, very Veronika DolinaAt the end of the first act of the great theater of fantasies pornhubDot comHe licks up her saliva with his tongueBig as a spadeHe finished inside her at one pointBut there’s no time on pornhubPornhub is liberated timeAfter that the monster releases a small, carnivorous fish into herA lively, darting fishAnd our blue-eyedGirlieWill be nothing but a puddleOf luminous liquid of the sacred energy of lifeAnd finally, the Wolf fucks the Fox (it’s a cartoon)Everything humanFinishesAt the same timeAll the other trends are evolvingDescribed porn is becoming popularSome people want to knowWho the characters are, what their jobs are, how it even happenedThat they started fuckingRight there in the officeWho needs whom as whoWho’s the boss ladyWho’s the Master, who’s the SlaveWho’s lusting, who’s doing the workThere’s been a “ladies’ section” for ages nowIt’s the same as the men’sThe same huge cocks, brazen breastsBut slowerWomen ask for it slower—or harder!The gap between the animal and the beast is growingSome must be protected(The sacredAnimalsOf modernity—That’sAllAnimals)We must protect against others (as best we can, of course)Denying our desireIn the throes of free multiple orgasmsIn the unstoppable revolution of lifeAnd the most essential thing isYou can’t watch porn with real actors anymoreOr with animals or children—but who in their right mind would watch that abuseIt’s tough for the detectivesButSketched in secret Japanese labsWith voice-overs added in RussiaAnimated in China—Everything is possibleYou hear, everything . . . it’s tough for the detectivesand the scholarstough and unbearableAnthropologistsPrefer not to seePoetsStay silent about the important thingsPsychoanalystsKnow but are bound by a vow of silenceIt’s tough for the detectivesIt penetrated my tongueA conviction about what’s human—Well, is it tough for you, Major Tomin?—Oh, it’s so tough, Lenathose poorSherlock Holmesesof my poorchildhoodHey, does anyone remember Major Tomin?You’ll look back—but no one will be thereThe psychoanalystAnd the wolf have diedThe fox has diedThe light is fading in the petting zooAnd it turns out that your entire identityYour entire cherished agencyNever existedOnly a dissociative fugueThat’s it,You can chooseA new place to liveA new nameA new Petersburg textOne philosopher-boyFrom somewhere far awayLike all philosophers,RecountedHow his neighbor in this unfathomable cityDuring a normal conversationSuddenly said he wanted a great love affairThen died two months laterLively, darting postcoital yearning,The little empress fishAte up his insidesHe couldn’t even clean his houseThrow away all thatDegrading crapHowcan you counter thatHow strongShould these mechanisms beWhat kind of protracted experienceShould they offerHow tightlyShould it be woven into everything elseSo that not a single (lousy) dissociative fugueWashes away the memory of you