poetree

alee_grrl

This post is a collaborative effort between

alee_grrl and

untonuggan. We each wrote a little introduction/meta piece to explain a little bit more. ( Read more... )

bookblather

Romantic intimacy is a tricky subject. It's hard to even agree on what it means. Is it sexual? Emotional? Platonic? Can it be all three at once?

( Nikki Giovanni might say so. )

I would tend to agree with Giovanni. Of course, as an asexual person I have a stake in declaring that romantic and sexual intimacy are not the same thing, and that it is possible to be emotionally and romantically intimate without adding sexual intimacy into the mix. Still, sexual intimacy need not be absent; I would simply argue that it is the most shallow of the layers of intimacy.

( I think Judith Viorst would say the same. )

There's another note at the end of True Love that struck me: "Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion..." Years and age may remove sexual passion from the relationship, assuming it was there in the first place. What does that do to intimacy? I think you can guess my answer: nothing.

( Adrienne Rich might agree with me. )

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raze

Introduction
Poetry is, to many, a medium of love. What springs to mind are Shakespearean sonnets and awkward limericks in Valentine's day cards and how to impress your 7th-grade crush. ( Read on... )

Friendship as Intimacy
Romantic love may be passionate and exciting and able to sweep you off your feet... but friendship will always be there to buy you ice cream and say, you were too good for him/her, anyway - and it won't say, I told you so even though it probably did. ( Read on... )

Featured Poem: An Origin Story
Project V.O.I.C.E. founders Phil Kaye & Sarah Kay are two friends who found each other through a mutual gift for poetry, storytelling, and the spoken word. ( Listen & Read, plus things to pay attention to )

Optional Challenge
Is there a special friend in your life who you feel you need to say something to or about after reading/listening? Take this opportunity to write a poem of any format for or about them and share it in the comments. I'll share a silly little Haiku below, and will post a longer poem in the comments to get the ball rolling.

( A friendship poem by yours truly )

Additional Reading
The Vinegar Club by Andrea Gibson
Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë
Helen Steiner Rice also wrote a number of poems about friendship, which you can find together in a collection here.

kaberett

One: I am trans and I am disabled. For me, intimacy often has physical aspects:

lightgetsin wrote an excellent essay on some of these intersections, last year, entitled Do I Do It For You? Service kink and disability, on some of the ways in which disability can encourage or compel physical - and emotional - intimacy.

Two: when we talk about intimacy, about trust, we often frame it in terms of the physical. In terms of romance, yes: we fall in and out of love, and making that fall physical is only a little stretch; but also in terms of closeness, as Simon Armitage's Homecoming: Think, two things on their own and both at once/The first, that exercise in trust, where those in front/stand with their arms spread wide and free-fall/backwards, blind, and those behind take all the weight...

These are my two things, each on their own and both at once. These are what I carry with me when I offer you this poem.

For more about this poem - in origin terms - please see Gabe Moses' website, and his reading of the poem.

( How To Make Love To A Trans Person, Gabe Moses [explicit; detailed discussion of surgery] )

jjhunter

Society members by code numbers: 9 – ardyforshort; 16 – fyreharper; 24 – J.J. the Pointed Verse of Reasoned Debate; 28 – firecat; 29 – untonuggan; 34 – okrablossom; 35 – Pau Amma; 40 – bookblather; and 41 – primeideal.

"There's something intimate about secrecy. When someone glances about and lowers their voice, you instinctively lean in. Whatever it is that the two of you discuss, your soft-voiced conversation creates a illusion of a private space, one set apart from the crowded world outside.

"Let's create such a space here [...]" Thus begins the Covert Collaboration Challenge, "a little experiment in secrecy as a recipe for intimacy". Over the course of a week, myself and my eight fellow Society members wrote two original sonnets; the majority of the lines in each were written with only one to two preceding lines for reference, and in the case of the second sonnet, the prompt ("spontaneous musicals, or What if life was more like theater?'").

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METAMORPHIC UNDERSTANDING

( full text of the 'Shakespearean' sonnet behind the cut )

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HELLO, TROLLEY

( full text of the 'loose Petrarchean' sonnet behind the cut )

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All are welcome to comment and discuss. Society members, was this experiment successful in fostering intimacy? Do you have any favorite exchanges or quotes you'd like to share from our Top Secret discussion threads?

poetree_admin

jjhunter

As written or spoken language in extraordinary form, poetry is a natural home for metaphor and emotional intensity. Feelings that may be difficult to express in everyday language find potent release in matching the form and feel of words and their meanings more tightly to their intended effect.

Thus, the closer we get to talking about what is not ordinarily said, or deeply personal, or complicated and achingly vulnerable - in short, the closer we get to emotional intimacy - the more we turn to song and poetry to bypass the usual boundaries of polite distance and speak heart-to-heart.

This week at POETREE, we hope you will join us in letting go a little of that protective distance, and engage openly and honestly with our various hosts' offerings on the theme of emotional intimacy.

( Schedule behind the cut )

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Last edited 6/23/13 by jjhunter

poetree_admin

POETREE @ Dreamwidth: Emotional Intimacy: June 17th - 22nd

In honor of QUILTBAG pride month, poetree is hosting a community themed week on 'Emotional Intimacy'. Sign up to share your thoughts or creative efforts June 17th - 22nd.

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Copy and paste-able html code for Dreamwidth:

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Copy and paste-able html code for Livejournal and other platforms:

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Note that you can change the banner size manually - it's currently set at 300 pixels wide, which matches the original image width.

poetree_admin

In honor of QUILTBAG pride month, our next community themed week focuses on emotional intimacy.

Emotional intimacy includes but is not limited to sexual or romantic intimacy. For more information about nonsexual intimacies, see

ysabetwordsmith's excellent reference series on the topic. If you do choose to tackle the topic of sexual emotional intimacy, we ask that anything more explicit than PG-13 territory go under a cut tag.

In addition to poems that focus on or convey emotional intimacy, we invite discussion and reflection on what elements of poetry itself, or what particular types of poems, are especially well-suited to conveying emotional intimacy. Why do people historically turn to poetry and song to express intense feelings? Is there something about the ambiguity or coded language of certain types of poetry that fosters intimacy and expression of sentiments that feel too big or too private to share easily in prose?

( Here is one possible post idea, please feel free to share more in the comments )

If you would like to participate, please comment on this post to claim a particular open slot and some sense of what content you'll post. You may also use the comment section to solicit collaborators for a group post.

( Available days behind the cut )

Last edited 6/17/13 by alee_grrl

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Entries tagged with themed week: emotional intimacy

Healing the World With Words - Poem and Meta

Meta: Emotional Intimacy in Romantic Relationships

How Rare This Is - Friendship, Intimacy, and Poetry

Exploration of a poem: How To Make Love To A Trans Person

the Secret Society of Stealthy Sonneteers

Intro to Community Week: Emotional Intimacy

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Signup for Next Community Week: Emotional Intimacy

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