The music of poetry: from “The Uses of the Body,” with Deborah Landau

There’s a lot to like in this wonderful verse from Deborah Landau’s The Uses of the Body.  I think the line that got me, on my first read – was “See how caught up we are/in our habitual flying pattern,” which reminded me of Pema Chödrön’s note: “No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear…the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away.” That “advice” helps cement the patterns, so we can dodge that confrontation with fear.

But the body, besides helping define the “flying patterns” that we hold so desperately onto, also gives us the chance to find the real sweetness of life, to give us the chance (as Landau says) to explore both the chance to wake up & illusion. And you just have to like someone who mentions that one of the basic pleasures is Keats.

You’re in for a treat. Thanks for your words & your art, Dr. Landau!
Brother Ian

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from The Uses of the Body
Deborah Landau

The uses of the body are manifold.
Lips, fingers, the back of the neck.

One should make as full a use as possible
before time’s up. In Paradise,

you should appreciate. Don’t squander.
Take a deep juicy bite then swallow.

Peaches are meant for tasting.
A lapping up. In Paradise

we lay and many afternoons
brought pleasure and relief.

*

Men look at you like you have the thing they want.
That somber hungry forcefield smack on.

It lies there. Is he aware?
I cannot see where this will end.

I can see where I need to go
but never get there. It’s operatic.

When I lie in bed my limbs go numb.
When the sky darkens.

The urge is there
but also the mandate

to damp it down.
Always the urge.

Always the mandate.
You’re still young, he says,

but youth will burst all at once
and be gone forever.

*

The uses of the body are wake up.
The uses of the body, illusion.

The uses of the body. Rinse repeat.
To make another body.

September. Draw the blanket up.
Lace your shoes.

The major and minor passions.
Sunlight. Hair.

The basic pleasures. Tomatoes, Keats,
meeting a smart man for a drink.

The uses of the body.
It is only a small house. It gets older.

Its upper and lower.
Its red and white trim.

It’s tempting to gloss over this part,
so you won’t really see me.

*

The uses of the body are heavy and light.
Raspberries, cradles, houses in Maine.

Biopsies, second opinions, MRIs.
I am cozy, I am full of want until chest pain,

until a heavy cramp. The pain of form.
See how caught up we are

in our habitual flying patterns
until we have to look the unfair doctor in the eye.

The genitals are irrelevant then.
Dr. Rutkowski, what was it you said?

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Deborah Landau is the author of three books of poems, includingThe Uses of the Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2015).

She teaches in and directs the Creative Writing Program at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.

“Landau’s killer wit evokes Dorothy Parker crossed with Sylvia Plath — leaping spark after spark, growing to deadly dark fire. ‘The Uses of the Body’ is her best book, its acerbic tone (‘The uses of the body, illusion’) interspersed with lines of grave and startling beauty.”  Los Angeles Times

Here’s more about Deborah: http://www.deborahlandau.net/