New publication - The Doll After Play

My poem, The Doll After Play, appears in the latest issue of The Pedestal Magazine, published yesterday. I wrote the majority of the poem over two years ago, after reading Hans Bellmer: The Anatomy of Anxiety by Sue Taylor. I’ve been drawn to Bellmer’s work ever since first being exposed to it in college. What struck me most about it is how his dolls take on a life of their own and don’t seem to be merely meticulously posed props. They seem to speak on their own, and their voice speaks louder than Bellmer’s.

Each tableau is an enactment of Bellmer’s fantasies, but (for me at least) his desire is subsumed by the dolls’ awareness. Their gazes—sometimes complicit, sometimes castigating, sometimes lost, sometimes knowing—are what drew me to them. These were complex creatures, with desires and intentions and conflicts all their own. Perhaps Bellmer created (consciously or unconsciously) this complexity because he saw in his victim, as abusers often do, a desire to be brutalized. And perhaps he created each scene from the perspective of the attacker (or a complicit voyeur) and always meant for any observer to view them from the same perspective. But perhaps his own inner conflict, his own desires to punish and to be punished, allowed other subtexts to creep in. Certainly whenever I viewed the images, I identified with the dolls, not the abuser, and I found their thoughts, their desires much more compelling than Bellmer’s—particularly the ones that meshed with his.

I therefore set about to write what these dolls seemed to be saying. I meant to give a voice to them but soon discovered that they had always had one, so my poem is merely a transcription of what I heard them saying to me.

Anyone familiar with Bellmer’s Doll at Play may recognize some allusions to it in my poem. I’m not sure what the effect of the poem is on someone unfamiliar with Bellmer’s work. I can only hope it’s still evocative and can stand on its own without the propping up of context.

I’m very pleased to have it published, and I’m honored that my little poem is nestled in among such fine work. I thank The Pedestal Magazine for selecting my poem for publication.