The Gurlesque

Pop Corpse - Lara Glenum

 Allusion to original mermaid myth : her suffering is trivialized and yet becomes the emblem of stuff we as a society judge important, but is artifice. "ornament and excrement". The mermaid is a half breed , all she can do is live poorly, and die. She presents the mermaid as being utterly unsexy, as being a cut off of a human body. She wishes she were human so she can have sex. XXX seems to be the daughter of the Sea and is depicted in a very negative way. The Seawitch sends obscene memos to the mermaid. She meets the Smear, who is a very handsome human man; he and the mermaid seem to fool around. Later he doesn't recognize her.
Vision Machines are a sort of obscene theater made to gain money. The King and Queen of the Sea choose the gender of their kids for political reasons. Tragedy of mermaids having breasts but no vaginas. The Disaster implies loss of real sexuality? XXX wants her own sex instead of being blank. Before the Royal Disaster Party she cuts herself a snatch and dreams about it. Her parents sentence her to the Slice Ward; her mutilating is well known throughout the kingdom. At the party she sees the Smear again and no one really likes him; he is as sick as she is. Then XXX goes to the rehab Slice Ward.She talks about her body, how she cuts it, how other people look at it, and its deformities. She claims dead girls are the best. She gets the treatment of the Gate of Heaven and then gets out of rehab. She goes to the Sea Witch and asks for a real crotch. She goes see the Jizzler who says he can give her one, unmermaid her, but she won't have nerve endings. A little unwillingly, she agrees. As she's walking on her prosthetic legs, she moves too much and everything comes off. It's all superficial. She talks to her father, who reserves an orgy for her, more suitable to her desires he feels are the best. XXX makes a deal with the Seawitch who says that as long as the Smear is interested in her, she can keep human form. As soon as he loses interest, she is iced; she loses her life. Her impressions of humans on land are grotesque. It is illegal for mermaids to be on land, and to make matters worse she goes to the Meat Brothel. She is taken in by the police and put in a re-education camp for the sexually deviant. The Smear, unbeknownst to her is also held in the same camp. The Orphaned Nihilist Society is used to put them on the "right track" but in reality, they turn them into freak shows, sex slaves. The Smear's crime was that he was dating a hermaphrodite.The Smear talks with the guard (the latter which presents XXX to him) and talks about the Meadow, which is a rarity considering the degradation of the natural world. The Smear states he is "cockdead" incapable of really feeling desire, despite the guard's attempt to pimp out XXX to him. She ends up on the sea floor with her tail cut off, watching seal porn. The Sea Witch finds her and gives her back her tail. She asks her to kill the Smear, and she can keep her life and her snatch. XXX goes to the Orphaned Nihilist Society where the Smear is, putting on an operetta. XXX goes up to the Smear and kisses him, uncaring that she is interrupting the televised show. Then the theatre is attacked. The Smear asks XXX to meer him at his castle. Her friends are concerned that she wants him, because the rumors say he's a porn freak and a sadist. They consummate their 'love' and XXX grows a real crotch and his dick stays up. They go off together to indulge in art and crime.

Lara Glenum reading : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fqP20pA3QE





Lara Glenum Welcome to the Gurlesque The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics

It's a feminine genre which takes a leaf from the burlesque genre. "Their work assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gender stereotypes to subversive ends." In performances, gender was purposefully mocked and subverted. Anything absurd could happen. The Gurlesque is a performance of self, there is no true identity. "Notes on ‘Camp’” writes, “the essence of Camp is the love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” The Gurlesque makes fun of the Natural which is in itself contradictory: such as how women are associated with Nature but are also inclined toward artificial stuff. The kitsch element in those types of writings are meant to dominate stylistically. The kitsch or "The Cute" is destructive as much as it is ridiculous. The very sappiness and cuddliness of the subject implies helplessness, lack of power and invites harsher powers to take control of it. Cuteness if deformity. Gurlesque poetry features writing and characters that are always changing; no fixed identity, no fixed gender, no fixed desire. The Gurlesque also under its quest for equal female rights in society and politics is actually a quest for sexual satisfaction. Women put their sexual pleasures at the center of their poetry as well. "Gurlesque poetry thus investigates the collision/collusion of fantasy and ethics at the core of Western cultural battles." The Gurlesque takes its distinct flair from many different previous genres for ex: in the way of deconstructing the male gaze, of using implicit violence to make a point, of blurring the line between genders, the monster as cultural object, the abject... etc The Gurlesque is even inspired by Dickinson!

Selections from Macular Hole - Cathy Wagner

My what to replace my favorite  trick; wanting to please but fighting against it, against God's injunction

I'm Total I'm all I'm absorbed in this meatcake ; she gives power to a reader but it is not taken; talks about power and life, choices ; the necessity of the individual
The Divinity of Man: talks about the mundane stuff we humans do, then goes into discourse of why certain drugs were used in certain decades; the answer is to bolster the human spirit.
I was at Congress with myself: talks about being in control of one's life; making crucial decisions like in Congress
I Walked in the House: talks about how the narrator did everything she could, both detrimental and beneficial to her to get the house; it's about money. She pays for everything; she wants to be outside the 'exchange' yet there still will be a transaction
Kill so we feel Safe and Comfortable: killing is directly related to sex. It is asked for.
Freely Esposa: Dating advice about attracting yet repelling man. themes of image to other people through the house and its cleanliness.
Wrought in Filigree and wrought in Granite: describes the ships that come into the forbidding sea ; have a different facet to them at any time of the day. they are women, and swim ashore. The young boy is wrought in filigree, he is scared and is trying to escape a barbed fence. contrast between sexes.
Scary Ballad: girl is lured into taking cold medicine through a pie she eats. No one knows what really happened or who did it.
Song: The sick talented boy cannot ask for compliments but he wants them. but when the question is asked, it is harmful: different imagery of rotting and harmful processes.
A Bash and I wanna look Good: The narrator feels ugly, and compares herself to another person who is pretty ; makes it clear that if that person were ugly, she would use her as a fool.
San Francisco Ballad: The narrator has a problem and doesn't know what to do with he/she sees. The song lyrics try to convey comfort. Narrator mentions sleep and then things will be fine.
An hendy hap: seems to talk about a bad marriage; how the wife views the husband as a tyrant, but when she is in her space it is fine. The end mentions how it's useless to blame someone for it.
There was a place in the brain, a red knot: talks about the past catching up to narrator and she births a big child. She asks questions to 'the Delver' about life
Big bang: like a strange sort of Frankenstein animal that is reanimated, reaches its peak and reforms to rot again.
Who admitted you: animosity towards life and mother; questions who let her in life.
Song: Scary Several light: talks about pregnancy and a certain Wagner character. mentions the fear and progress of pregnancy; like a lullaby.
Perfect Love: talks about birth and how we as humans come from 'bags'. she seems to resent baby's presence, her time is no longer hers. she writes a poem to feel better. she mentions exhausting herself for him is not perfect love.
Inmost: talks about relationship between the skin and the outside world and vice-versa. Talks about inner reaction to pregnancy which is natural, and outer reaction to pregnancy which is surprise.
For you everywhere Phoebus the fields of song are laid out: talks about how a baby got poked; but it was still alive, and she helped it, fed it, with his head in a glass jar. Not clear whether he's real or not.
Imitating: narrator hopes she is kind and good, but her jealousy and hate is inimitable. She is alone.
I harnessed my powers, I didn't have time not to burn myself (she mentions how she messed up), she dances and mentions how happiness is energy and capability. narrator realizes she is imitating someone in that she is making movements other people do. A jealousy fit attacks her and goes away. she mentions how god is a questionnaire but she finds the answer: herself and a man. She is greedy for something, and digs a hole in herself. She is hungry for something and frightened, and she tries to stay awake. I think she is hungry for information.