Tuesday Poetry

Tomas Tranströmer

"Vermeer"

No sheltered world . . . on the other side of the wall the
noise begins
the tavern begins
with laughter and bickering, rows of teeth, tears, the din
of bells
and the mentally disordered brother-in-law, the bearer
of death that everyone must tremble for.

The great explosion and the delayed tramp of rescuers
the boats that strut at anchor, the money that creeps into
the pocket of the wrong person
demands piled on demands
Cusps of gaping red flowers that sweat premonitions of
war

Away from there and straight through the wall into the
bright studio
into the second that goes on living for hundreds of years.
Paintings titled The Music Lesson
or Woman in Blue Reading a Letter --
she's in her eighth month, two hearts kicking inside her.
On the wall behind her hangs a wrinkled map of Terra
Incognita.

Breathe calmly . . . An unknown blue material is nailed
to the chair.
The gold upholstery tacks flew in with unheard-of speed
and stopped abruptly
as if they had never been anything but stillness.
The ears ring with either depth or height.
It's the pressure from the other side of the wall
that leaves every fact suspended
and holds the brush steady.

It hurts to go through walls, it makes you sick
but it's necessary.
The world is one. But walls . . .
And the wall is part of yourself --
Whether you know it or not it's the same for everyone,
everyone except little children. No walls for them.

The clear sky has set itself on a slant against the wall.
It's like a prayer to emptiness.
And the emptiness turns its face to us
and whispers,
"I am not empty, I am open."

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper

By Diablo Cody, Published 2006

Sometime in the last year (or two?) I saw the movie Juno and was vaguely aware that it was written a woman named Diablo Cody.

So when I was browsing through one of my favorite bookstores recently and saw her memoir Candy Girl I decided to take a quick flick through it. After finishing the book a few days later I can see why Hollywood took an interest in her.

Originally, Candy Girl started out as a blog which chronicled Cody’s life as a stripper and sex phone worker in Minneapolis over the course of a year.

Candy Girl is part of a genre of female writers who choose to take up some sort of unusual occupation or hobby and then blog about it. The most obvious being Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia Child’s cookbook in one year in the blog (and later book and movie) Julie and Julia.

It’s a genre that really doesn't interest me because it seems to follow a general format: girl takes up hobby, writes about its effect on her life, scores book deal, etc. I guess that’s one of the reasons I found myself reading (and enjoying) Candy Girl. Cody makes it clear that during her stint as a stripper she achieved no grand lesson or personal breakthroughs. She’s just a girl who got sucked into the outskirts of the sex industry because the money was better than office work.

Cody does attempt to explain how she decided to start working as a stripper. She points to a lovely, drama-free childhood in the suburbs, devoid of any real risk taking. The catalyst (if you can call it that) was her moving from Chicago to Minneapolis in 2003 to be with her boyfriend Jonny. Starting over in a new city with no history seemed to liberate her. She states: “My life felt like a dry-erase board that had been wiped of all its past transgressions...” (4).

Slowly, Cody began to dip her toes into the world of stripping, starting off at Amateur Night and moving on to work one to two nights a week while still keeping her job as a copy typist at an advertising agency.

She freely admits to feeling like an idiot when she’s up on stage and to not fitting in with the blond, tan, hard-bodied strippers who populate the clubs she works at. Cody excels at describing the cool, darkness of the clubs and the strange mating dance the strippers engage in with potential clients. Aggressiveness and general lack of rejection seems to be the key factors in earning money.

What I found most fascinating was the economic maze of the various strip clubs Cody worked at. Most strippers must sell a certain number of dances and a certain number of drinks in order to even get paid. If they don’t make their quota they might end up owing the club money at the end of the night.

Cody is soon disabused of the notion that stripping is easy money. Most shifts last eight hours and involve wearing shoes that should be classified as torture devices. The dancers must quickly learn to sniff out which clients are willing to part with their money, but even then there are no guarantees.

She eventually burns out at the end of the year for obvious reasons: the constant groveling to gross men who populate the clubs just wears her out. But overall she walks away unscathed with some fun stories and a good pile of money.

Her writing style is light and easy, and Cody comes across as likeable and self-deprecating. For those looking for a more serious take on stripping, this isn’t your book. Cody’s foray into stripping skims the surface, never dwelling too long on the darker, destructive parts of the industry.

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

By Alison Weir, Published 2010

Without a doubt, Alison Weir is my favorite biographer. Usually focusing on famous female historical figures she has written biographies on Queen Isabella, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary Queen of Scotts, Queen Elizabeth I, as well as Henry VIII and his children.

Lady in the Tower is her newest biography and focuses exclusively on the months leading up to Anne Boleyn’s trial and execution.

Weir puts to rest the notion that Henry VIII was behind the accusations of adultery, incest and treason leveled against Anne in May 1536. Most people have seen Anne’s fall as a result of marital discord, but Weir notes that such a view is too simplistic. In fact, sources noted that up until she was accused of her crimes she was still “the person who manages, orders, and governs everything, whom the King does not dare to oppose” (54). Weir paints a picture of a Henry VIII who was very much still in Anne’s thrall, though her power had waned considerably since she was unable to produce a male heir.

How did Anne became the victim of “the most rapid and bloody political crises of the century”? (72).

Weir places the blame solely at the feet of Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who believed Anne posed a threat to his policies as well as his life.

Anne still influenced the King regarding religion, and was against Cromwell’s dissolving England’s monasteries and using the money for the crown. She was also behind the execution of Cardinal Wolsey, one of the most powerful men in all of England. It was also widely believed that her faction was also behind the poisoning attempt of John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.

Weir makes it clear that in the world of court politics Anne and her family were powerful enough to take down Cromwell, leading him to destroy Anne. Her cruel treatment of Mary (Henry’s only legitimate child), her difficult behavior, and her highly flirtatious manner with men only helped Cromwell as he sought to build a case against her.

When she and five men (one being her brother George Boleyn) were accused of adultery, incest and plotting the King’s death the entire Kingdom was shocked.

Weir makes it clear that Henry waited until all of Cromwell’s evidence was laid out until he finally believed that Anne had cuckolded him and sought his death. Instead of the cruel and evil tyrant who simply wanted Anne out of the way, Henry was in fact humiliated by the charges and removed himself from the public eye until the trail was over.

As with her previous books, Weir excels as creating the feel and mood of an era. When describing Anne being taken to the Tower of London, where she will be held as a prisoner, Weir is quick to point out that the Tower did not hold the sinister symbolism of later years. She also uses legal documents, budgets, and supply lists to paint a vivid picture of the daily life of Anne and her daughter.

Though it is widely known the charges against Anne were most likely untrue, Weir uses her knowledge of court life to point out the near impossibility of committing adultery. Constantly surrounded by her ladies in waiting, Anne would have found it impossible to sneak around with a single lover, let alone five. Weir also notes that since not one of her ladies was arrested for aiding her adultery, it can only be assumed it never happened.

The twisted, venomous atmosphere of court life comes across in Weir’s research. She records that former friends and family members wasted no time switching their alliances to Henry’s newest paramour, Jane Seymour, once it was clear that Anne and her faction were headed for ruin. Anne’s own mother and father stood by as she and her brother were killed in order to save their own skin.

Weir also notes that Anne’s main accuser was her sister-in-law Jane Parker. Parker would later be described as possessing a meddlesome personality, and ironically would be put to death for aiding Henry’s fifth wife (Katherine Howard) in committing adultery.

In the end, Anne and five men were put to death for treason. Anne’s death came last, and while burning was the normal penalty for women who committed treason, it seems that Henry wanted to avoid a gruesome spectacle. Anne was kept in the dark about how she would die, and her anguish was used as a political tool to get her to agree to annul her marriage in exchange for a less painful death. However, it seems Henry had already summoned a well-known executioner from Calais before her trail was even over.

Queen for only three years, Anne was put to death at the age of thirty-five. If not for her daughter Elizabeth’s return to the throne, Anne’s legacy may been more different.

Some of my other favorites from Weir are:

Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

The Children of Henry VIII

The Life of Elizabeth I