Repulsive Women?

Illustration from the book, by Djuna Barnes (Source)

Back in 1915, at the very beginning of her literary career, Djuna Barnes collected eight "rhythms" and five drawings to be published in a chapbook called The Book of Repulsive Women. Set in New York City, the subjects of these poems are all women and for their time were considered controversial due to the descriptions of women's bodies and sexuality. Indeed, they may still be considered salacious today!

In later years, Barnes regretted the publication of Repulsive Women: she regarded it an embarrassment, called it "idiotic"; omitted it from her curriculum vitae, and even burned copies! However, as the copyright was never registered, it became one of her most published works, despite remaining the most obscure.

For today's reading, I've included the first three poems from Repulsive Women. Only you can decide if you feel they are repulsive; or, as some critics suggest, that the expose and satirise cultural attitudes towards women...

Reading time: < 5 Minutes

From Fifth Avenue Up

SOMEDAY beneath some hard
Capricious star—
Spreading its light a little
Over far,
We'll know you for the woman
That you are.

For though one took you, hurled you
Out of space,
With your legs half strangled
In your lace,
You'd lip the world to madness
On your face.

We'd see your body in the grass
With cool pale eyes.
We'd strain to touch those lang'rous
Length of thighs,
And hear your short sharp modern
Babylonic cries.

It wouldn't go. We'd feel you
Coil in fear
Leaning across the fertile
Fields to leer
As you urged some bitter secret
Through the ear.

We see your arms grow humid
In the heat;
We see your damp chemise lie
Pulsing in the beat
Of the over-hearts left oozing
At your feet.

See you sagging down with bulging
Hair to sip,
The dappled damp from some vague
Under lip,
Your soft saliva, loosed
With orgy, drip.

Once we'd not have called this
Woman you—
When leaning above your mother's
Spleen you drew
Your mouth across her breast as
Trick musicians do.

Plunging grandly out to fall
Upon your face.
Naked—female—baby
In grimace,
With your belly bulging stately
Into space.

In General

WHAT altar cloth, what rag of worth
Unpriced?
What turn of card, what trick of game
Undiced?
And you we valued still a little
More than Christ.

From Third Avenue On

AND now she walks on out turned feet
Beside the litter in the street
Or rolls beneath a dirty sheet
       Within the town.
She does not stir to doff her dress,
She does not kneel low to confess,
A little conscience, no distress
       And settles down.

Ah God! she settles down we say;
It means her powers slip away
It means she draws back day by day
       From good or bad.
And so she looks upon the floor
Or listens at an open door
Or lies her down, upturned to snore
       Both loud and sad.

Or sits beside the chinaware,
Sits mouthing meekly in a chair,
With over-curled, hard waving hair
       Above her eyes.
Or grins too vacant into space—
A vacant space is in her face—
Where nothing came to take the place
       Of high hard cries.

Or yet we hear her on the stairs
With some few elements of prayers,
Until she breaks it off and swears
       A loved bad word.
Somewhere beneath her hurried curse,
A corpse lies bounding in a hearse;
And friends and relatives disperse,
       And are not stirred.

Those living dead up in their rooms
Must note how partial are the tombs,
That take men back into their wombs
       While theirs must fast.
And those who have their blooms in jars
No longer stare into the stars,
Instead, they watch the dinky cars—
       And live aghast.

Further Reading:

To read the complete collection, head over to A Celebration of Women Writers. I also enjoy this version from Green Integer which places the illustrations alongside the poems rather than at the back.