My rosebud dress

A poem and an essay, I guess

Content warning: kinda heavy

A committed cliché, I was sitting in the Nayland Rock sea shelter in Margate (where T.S. Eliot allegedly wrote parts of The Waste Land) reading a book of poems at golden hour. The book was Path of Totality by Niina Pollari.

What I found most impressive and moving about it was the way the poems begin in a lyrical register—allusive and associative, poetic side-eye—before gradually shifting into a more prosaic mode as the book ‘comes to terms’ with its own (heart-distressing) subject matter. Like a blurry photo suddenly right there in HD. The effect made me sit there nodding, whispering ‘yes’ to myself at lines like ‘I don’t have enough money to feel sad for as long as I want to feel it’.

One thing I remember stupidly saying to my university professor during my MA a few years ago was something like, I still can’t understand why I can’t just say what I want to say without writing a poem about it. Why can’t I just say, this hurt? Why can’t I just say, I think I love you, and I’m scared? She looked at me strangely before suggesting that this was in and of itself the poetic struggle.

Since I began writing poetry more seriously in 2019, I haven’t tended to write all that much about trauma in too direct a way. When I have, I haven’t been very satisfied with the results, which have just felt raw and lacking in artistry to me.

For context and case study, almost ten years ago, I was violently attacked in the street walking home at night and came close to death owing to blood loss. Two blood transfusions administered at the scene saved my life. This event has almost felt too violent to commit to a lyric mode. The brutal, plain facts of what happened felt too definite and in this sense, I suppose, too ugly in their certainty to feel like lyrical subject matter. Even with the fuzzening effect of time, it doesn’t feel like something I’ve wanted to address all that much in poetry, even though I know the experience has irrevocably hued my lens.

But Niina’s poems gave me a new sense of possibility, and I began writing down some more prosaic poems of my own as the sunset deepened to a shade of marmalade orange. A bold man called out ‘Are you a poet poet-ing, or an artist arting?’

‘The first one’ I called back

He moved towards me as if he expected me to read out what I had written down.

‘It’s a break-up poem’ I said, and he backed away smiling.

I read out several of these new poems at a writing-in-progress event in Margate last week. The poem below was one of them.

MY ROSEBUD DRESS
 
 
I couldn’t afford the rosebud dress
 
but I bought it anyway.
 
It was floor-length, black, printed with tiny red roses,
 
a cut-out triangle back, cuffed sleeves and deep V. Demure.
 
The first time wearing it out, there was no special occasion.
 
I selected a bench on the Southbank, began reading.
 
Two different men sat down beside me and tried it on.
 
Guessed I was a literature student.
 
I was.
 
~
 
It happened again a few weeks later.
 
It was July. Outside a bar. Perhaps I was smoking.
 
I do that in summer.
 
I was wearing the dress.
 
Even as he walked towards me, I knew.
 
No! I was saying, before he’d even said anything
 
and he laughed, because I was right
 
and because it didn’t deter him.
 
He insisted on a drink and I felt my boundaries buckling.
 
He kissed me
 
in front of the ex I’d said not to kiss me in front of.
 
He was good at kissing.
 
The kiss was the kind that sought a conclusion.
 
Then I was inside his gutted, lightless bungalow—shivering, doubtful.
 
I clocked the Durex in the toilet,
 
referenced when he got forgetful.
 
Turned out he didn’t want to remember—
 
he pinned my arms to the bed with one strong hand,
 
lifted my long skirt with the other.
 
In situations like that, it helps to whisper advertising slogans.
 
Enjoy.
 
~
 
Next morning, dazed,
 
I wandered home in the too-hot-already sun,
 
my rosebud dress crumpled.
 
Dark patches under my arms.
 
~
 
I still love that dress.

I had to practice reading it out aloud several times before going to the reading, to get over the crying that kicked in around the last few lines.

I often hear women’s writing (including my own) described as being ‘clinical’ in its observation. I saw that written about Annie Ernaux in an article headline recently. It bothers me hugely that this is often thrown out uncritically—without acknowledgement that a woman might have to scrutinise her own life so closely to try to makes sense of her pain, to find a way to express and dissociate from it. Sometimes, I feel like the deadpan I can bring to a reading or performance is an extension of this.

On one hand, it felt particularly vulnerable to read in a venue in a small town, where anonymity doesn’t factor. On the other, I felt like the writing was held in a way it sometimes doesn’t at trendy readings in London, where it can feel at times like work is met with an archly competitive, even hostile, reception—a situation I’d rather not bring my more sincerely vulnerable expressions to.

Back to the other hand: I felt moved recently when a heavily pregnant friend, who had decided to pose for a local life modelling class, asked if I’d attend for moral support. It was an intimate experience (from my POV) that made me feel very protective and tender towards my friend. I felt it was very brave of her to allow herself to be seen and celebrated. I was impressed by her vulnerability.

Latterly, speaking about the experience, which had felt very beautiful for her at the time, I was dismayed to hear that one of the (male) drawing participants had messaged her inappropriately afterwards to invite her for a tea.

This came back to me the other day when I read out my poem. Because often, my poems, contain descriptions, images and atmospheres that could be considered titillating. And because multiple times, what they try to communicate or contend with is reduced to and read as a poem about sex.

For example, my poems Lana del Reymix and Stella McCartney Bra are both intended as critiques of the way women are sexually projected onto. Yet, I worry (and know) they have been received as straight-up provocation (for which there is definitely a place imo) and even invitation.

A few hours after the reading, a man who had attended messaged to say how much he had enjoyed my poetry. I wish my experience enabled a non-cynical reaction; to be able to take it as a straight-up compliment with no further agenda.

~

Weirdly, recently I was walking through town, when a passing man caught my eye because, I guess, he was good-looking, with a good-looking girlfriend. For a few moments, I wondered why he seemed familiar, before realising who he was.

I was taken off-guard by my own internal thought: What do you know—the guy who low-key raped me is actually pretty hot.