These new poems by Stephen (sometimes Stephanie) Burt explore, in the author’s own words, coming of age as it might have happened for his female alter-ego. Burt, who is one of our premiere and most acclaimed literary critics, especially of poetry, has also become a poet whose genderfluidity allows for astonishing discoveries for writer and reader. The eponymous ‘Stephanie’ is of course so much more than just a poetic personae, but she is also that. Her poems explore the embodiment of gender as written across language, its telling phrases and subtle repetitions, but also a shapeshifting generosity of imagination. In Mean Girls, Baudelaire comes head to head with “slutty loop earrings” with more than a winking nod to Tina Fey’s now cult-classic screenplay. The tension of Burt’s voice as revelation/concealment, the unique way in which poetry is tied to a plurality of real and imagined bodies, are exactly what these poems speak to: “I can’t figure out if I want / to conceal myself, or display myself, or display myself as somebody else, or both.” The familiar and baffling way in which this syntax is so wonderfully queer to me is not just in its explosion of binary thinking nor just for its embrace of dizzying, matter-of-fact complexities, but in the precise sense in which all/none of these phrases suffice. Or both? Or both.
—Adam Fitzgerald, Poetry Editor
LOGICAL STEPHANIE
If elbow then other elbow, wrist and knees.
(I am all elbows, and all knees.)
If raised eyebrow, then newly-lacquered eyelash. If eyelash, then question mark.
(I have had trouble with stray marks.)
If Magic Marker, then brother on furniture,
a scratchy upholstered chair in the shape of a Z,
failing to make up lost sleep.
If sleep, then wake. If less sleep, early wake;
if early loud waking, then brother again, who calls
you sister or bother, or brotherly mother, or other.
If you don’t know then don’t say so.
If nobody says so, & nobody draws
a flattering picture of you for you,
then sit down and wait forever in the continuous
verbal present, where what was true
must analytically always have been true.
If aloof then how do you do. If devoted, then clingy,
and therefore then ignored. If apology, tears,
then run back to bed and pull quilt over head. If quilt,
then sleep again. If no sleep, then tell time.
If alone for long, then headache. If headache, then cried,
so be alone for longer. If hiding
feels hollow—if you feel like paper scraped clean,
the way you read monks used to do, for epigraphy
(a mythological word that feels brand-new),
then you are not like you; you are ancient parchment,
scratched on the unseen side. If true, then hide.
MEAN GIRLS
after Baudelaire
In twos and threes on bedspreads the color of sand
Anywhere in suburban America they turn
Their parallel painted toes to the horizon
Finding a target almost without knowing it Hand
On hand together as on a hand-drawn
Ouija board they select
A number to dial a name to call and deflect
The reputation that would land on them
They betray their confidences with confidence
Some of them used to walk through the last wild stand
Of maples behind the cul-de-sac snapping the saplings
Calling each other crybabies they mock experience
And mock my lack of experience
Their net composed of telephone cords
Night after night brings up ghosts
Lantern fish and anglerfish with their intense
Lures are not more fit
For such secretive nights such high-pressure environments
Such canticles of devotion to amoral gods
Some of them open the liquor cabinet
In an otherwise empty household and discover
The pleasure of Limoncello and headachy sleep
Some of them mock you for paying
Too much for a sparkly tunic or for looking cheap
They say your black bracelets and grave
Demeanor augur solitary nights
But your slutty hoop earrings must hurt You liked
The right boys but in the wrong order You called it a rave
But it was not a rave You are too good
An accessory kiss-off show-off You disgust
Our modesty You have nothing to show They place air quotes
Around your life so you learn not to trust
Yourself any more than they trust
One another because you still crave
Their pathetic and fleeting attention O monstrous martyrs
With your emerald contact lenses O terrible saints
Of hypocrisy penlites and brave
Cursive in sealed envelopes You understand
How some of us you reject will never forget you
We will grow up to study your mistakes
As means of navigation You wanted to keep
Us from becoming like you but we will not let you
TOO LATE AT NIGHT STEPHANIE
Alas, you’re still you.
SKYLIGHT STEPHANIE
Nothing to wear, says the morning snow, so
virtuous & fast
it takes the distinctions from nearly everything,
like the bagpipe drone in the 7th grade talent show,
so overwhelming it made
us ask why you would want to,
until we figured it out: the obliteration,
the cancelling-everything-else, is part of the point—
like drifts on the scalene
roofs, M’s & N’s made
cursive, finials soft as years
in some successful future life, until
nobody sees out, nobody sees in,
nothing fits over me
today & nothing I own
will ever fit me again;
I can’t figure out if I want
to conceal myself, or display myself, or display
myself as somebody else, or
both; air sculpts its own
last flakes & parabolas cover themselves like desserts
that younger me repeatedly
craved, coconut or maple
over novelty, available
momentarily after each storm, & by the time
they finish & go back to bed we know spring,
when it rushes up with all its stupid
colors again, will disappoint us too.
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Some of these poems first appeared in the chapbook All-Season Stephanie, published last year by Rain Taxi’s OHM Editions.
