Nin Andrews' Prose Poem: "Spontaneous Breasts"

With a Commentary on the Poem by the Author

This post is part of a new series which gives excerpts from an anthology I edited called A Cast-Iron Aeroplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 Contemporary American Poets on Their Prose Poetry.

A Cast-Iron Aeroplan That Can Actually Fly

In this anthology I asked masters of the prose poem to choose one of their own poems and to write a commentary about the process of writing it. Not only are these prose poems and commentaries interesting in themselves, but they prove that there isn’t one way to write a poem, or anything else for that matter.

What can one say about Nin Andrews? Her prose poems are characterized by endless invention, as are her moving and often humorous verse poems about her family. She is a fabulist of the highest order, her imagination, to me, similar to the risk-taking geniuses of French and South American poetry, and the feminist poetics in the short parodic prose of Margaret Atwood.

Enjoy . . .

Nin Andrews

SPONTANEOUS BREASTS

All her life Rena had prayed to develop breasts. When she confided this to Barry Slick, the great Rishi, he informed her that she need only act as if she already had breasts. “It’s all in your mind,” he said. For seven days and seven nights Rena pondered. On the evening of the eighth night, a tremendous bosom flew out of her left side, soon to be followed by another on the right. A feeling of their presence filled the room, along with a soft white haze and the scent of rain. Rena could almost hear the breasts breathing. For many years after, Rena felt as if she were walking through a heavy fog with unexpected visitors.

COMMENTARY

            The idea for the poem and book, Spontaneous Breasts, first occurred to me when a friend, whom I shall call Rena, announced that she was planning to sprout breasts the natural way. At a meditation seminar she had heard of a healer who lived on the west side of Cleveland and who could hypnotize female clients, taking them back to their adolescence, thus stimulating dormant teenage hormones and inducing breasts to start growing again. After several months of visiting this healer, flat-chested women displayed major cleavage. The healer’s name, if I recall correctly, was Dr. Slick. Rena confided to me how exotic her life with large breasts would be, complaining that she often felt as ordinary as a bowl of cornflakes. Privately, I imagined Dr. Slick as a tiny man in the midst of adulatory buxom women whose bosoms would never stop growing and whose hormones might never cease stirring. Although Rena was unable to locate Dr. Slick, she continued to relate his miraculous powers with breasts. And I started rewriting her life as if she were a victim of immense and instant breasts.

            Because of poems like “Spontaneous Breasts,” people often tell me I’m a surrealist, suggesting that my poetry is not of this world. My inspiration, however, often comes directly from experience, and I believe it is sometimes in the surreal that we recognize ourselves. Why? Because people are quite surreal, especially when it comes to their desires. Deep down many of us seem to believe that there is some kind of magic, a secret recipe, lover, prayer, or, in the case of Rena, a big bosom or two, that could deliver us whatever we wish for, that could transform us from Cinderellas into queens, from humans into angels, from couch potatoes into Olympians, from frigid souls into athletes in bed. Of course, advertisers feed on our unconfessed beliefs and yearnings, selling us potions, gowns, diets, drugs, faiths and mantras of every flavor, species, and dimension. There are, after all, so many seductive myths, parables and fairy tales of both positive and negative transformations, how can we resist them?

            Perhaps Simone Weil was correct when she said that one of the first things we know about ourselves is our imperfection. Perhaps the second thing we know about ourselves is how much we yearn for perfection. But what is perfection and where does it exist? In a museum, a snowflake, California, or in a poem or another realm? How close can we get to perfection before falling like Adam and Eve from Eden? How many of the rough edges of life need to be smoothed away before perfection and beauty occur, and how do we know when we’ve erased too much? Would we be happy if we were perfect, and is it possible to segregate perfection and imperfection? Do we actually have an unconfessed love for our imperfection, or our untransformed nature? Will Rena be transported with joy by her big breasts?

            These are the kinds of questions which inform both the form and content of my poems. My vision or concept of prose poetry is of a genre which does not claim to be either this or that, fiction or poetry, but which is both and neither, attempting an impossible balancing act between the polarities of our human nature and our aesthetic aspirations. Because we are both the people of our dreams and the strangers and neighbors others meet on sunlit sidewalks, I think it’s only natural to seek a literary genre that is, at once, mystical and ordinary. Just as many poems might be better off maintaining the verbal magic and mystery of poetry while retaining simple prose structures, Rena, herself, would probably have been happier if she had only dreamt of, yet never achieved, her ideal form. Part of the beauty of prose poetry is its plainspoken elegance and the very question its existence poses to our concepts of the ideal, our models or standards and structures.

And now here is Nin speaking about one of her favorite prose poems by the great French poet, Henri Michaux:

In the early days of writing prose poems, back when in college, I studied philosophy, psychology and theology, not in an abstract sense, but in order to cope—I then (and still have) a mind which tended towards depression. I loved Buddhist texts that described how the mind creates illusions.  I also liked existential philosophers, mystics, and Karl Jung with his psychologicalspiritual insights.

In light of that, the prose poet I first fell in love with was Henri Michaux. Part philosopher, part joker, he addressed the darkness in the mind with surreal wit and honesty. His poem, “The session with the Sack,” for example, begins:

It all started when I was a very small child. There was always a large adult somewhere in the way.

How could I take revenge on him? I stuck him in the sack. There, I could beat him at ease. He cried; I was the one who didn’t listen. He didn’t interest me in the least.

A great opening for a reader who was abused as a child. The poem goes on to talk of how he coped with World Wars, occupations, and militaristic people, thanks to the magical sack. 

A shorter poem by Michaux I’ve always enjoyed is “Simplicity.” But I hesitate to mention it here because, when I’ve taught the poem, a few women have taken offense, suggesting it’s the poem of a sexual pervert or an abusive man. I read it as magical thinking and an amusing rendering of a mind’s lustful fantasies. I think either gender could write a poem of sexual fantasy that could be considered objectionable. Why not have a sense of humor about our secret thoughts?  In any case, the poem makes me laugh. Of course, humor is personal. And I love dark humor.

Simplicity

(Translated by Richard Ellmann)

What has been particularly lacking in my life up to now is simplicity. Little by little I am beginning to change.

For example, I always go out with my bed now and when a woman pleases me, I take her and go to bed with her immediately.

If her ears are ugly and large, or her nose, I remove them along with her clothes and put them under the bed, for her to take back when she leaves; I keep only what I like.

If her underthings would improve by being changed, I change them immediately. That is my gift. But, if I see a better-looking woman go by, I apologize to the first and make her disappear at once.

People who know me claim that I am incapable of doing what I just described, that I haven’t enough spunk. I once thought so myself, but that was because I wasn’t doing everything just as I pleased.

Now, I always have excellent afternoons. (Mornings I work.)  

Nin Andrews’ most recent book is The Last Orgasm The Last Orgasm She can be found at https://www.ninandrews.com/about

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You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com

His most recent book of prose poems is While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems

His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories

Find out why he is giving away his new book of prose poem/fragments, even though he has a publisher for it, by downloading the PDF from the below link or going to OLD MAN’S homepage. His “Note to the Reader” and “Introduction” at the beginning of the PDF explains it all: Observations from the Edge of the Abyss