Pussy and Jazz Festival

In ‘pussy’ I love the idea of what the perfect woman is, what she does or more importantly what she doesn’t do. She is the ultimate social anti-perfection of what we are told women are supposed to be, and in as much she is perfect and beautiful, ‘au natural’. I dig the ‘philosophy’ of this poem, the giant ‘F’ you to social standards of beauty and the amazing comfort of the woman who could give the proverbial ‘two shits’. The second and third stanzas of the poem are my favorite, they show exactly how she treats herself in full confidence outside the social norms and also how unimpressed she is by the standardized male courting rituals. I like the fact that the woman is mostly faceless, that her distinctive features aren’t how she looks but who she actually is.
Ironically when I first read ‘Lessons in Color at the Jazz Festival’ I was listening to Miles Davis, (Kind of Blue if you really wanted to know). I like the first line, it sets the tone of the poem with out giving too much away and holds the tone until the final stanza. How the music is described as ‘the color of sweet Georgia peach, drippingly dense, filling you up and sweating out sticky.’ I’m not sure if I have ever heard it described that well. I also like the description of the jazz man’s face as obscene. But the social context of the poem is undeniable, the race issue of being at a jazz festival. It’s an odd flip on what’s standard for white people, where all of a sudden they are the minority but also a sobering realization of what it’s like to be on the other end, to be the minority and taken out of normality. And how Meaghan seemed to imply that ‘white is the same as money’ in the eyes of the vendors (I hope I’m interpreting that right.) And the final stanza to me seems to speak almost lovingly of music outiside the realm of race, how the music speaks for itself regardless of skin color if we (the listeners) would just close our eyes and hear it for what it is. My only critique of this poem is calling comparing the music to summer love, it reminds me more of classic rock or folk music instead of the chaos and dark tone of jazz. Ha of course it may be because I’m listening to Miles Davis (Bitches Brew now) instead of Count Basie. Let me know what you think, I won’t be in class tonight..