Volgens die berig op die Poetry Foundation se webblad is die wenner van vanjaar se Sexiest Poem Award pas bekend gemaak. Hierdie gesogte toekenning, wat deur CAConrad georganiseer word, word soos volg op hul webblad beskryf: ““The Sexiest Poem Award is given annually to a finely crafted poem demonstrating a fearlessness which confronts injustice. POLITICAL POEMS ARE SEXY!” (Met ‘n bepaalde voorliefde vir die gebruik van hoofletters inkluis.)
Nietemin, vanjaar se wenner is Rob Halpern (foto) vir sy ellelange gedig “Music for Porn” wat deur Nightboat Books uitgegee is.
Volgens die lofrede die volgende:
If there is anywhere presently where the machinations of how we are carefully FED the most brutal possible acts of our species it is with faggots and war. The delicate palate of the American Left for inclusivity, albeit through assimilation, cannot negotiate taking a stand against war if it means disallowing faggots their God-given right to kill Arabs with pride. Apparently nothing can calm a nervous populace like a politically correct militia. Halpern does not write overtly about any of these things I say, it’s the historical timing of the publication I note.
The ACUTE timing of Halpern’s book with gay genocide (silent genocide) in American-occupied Iraq, a genocide American homosexual soldiers (closeted or not) helped create, perpetuate, ignore, and fester. Halpern’s book has 9 sections, 9 the indestructible number, each section a departure from the previous section’s form, but never from the unyielding examinations a poet worth their salt will make. Rob Halpern has found his strength in the susceptibility to harm. To linger over the wound is to imagine any hole as an invitation.
Hieronder volg twee uittreksels uit dié bekroonde werk.
***
yr role in something boundless makes me impotent, a blank the
war keeps repeating, a bad infinity gone sublime. you come from
the land of ur, forgotten zone of oil and steel. these things extend
the body, my operations of regulatory power. kissing barn wood,
rubbing rock, yr clover grows over everything. it all fades out
beyond the true, my one unwritten sentence, this forest of dying
birds. would that you were only meat”
[bladsy 17]
***
My body keeps channeling so many contradictory feelings around
the figure of a soldier intensity of shame as his body becomes the
object of my violence and my lust. I want to kill him for blocking
my dream of a demilitarized future, and I want to be fucked by
him because the repressive sublimation of his body has become
unbearable, the way the realization that I, too, stand in the way of
that other future has become unbearable.”
[bladsy 47]
(c) Rob Halpern (Uit: Music for Porn, 2012: Nightboat Books)