This Sunday, Dan Chiasson reviewed the newly published Best American Erotic Poems in the New York Times. His verdict:
The body parts alone oppress you: lips, testicles, shoulders, eyes, over and over again until you would rather inhabit some spirit realm where bodies are outlawed.
Got it. Erotic poetry anthologies=tiring. But more importantly, we learned of W.H. Auden's poem "The Platonic Blow" about...exactly that, and so dirty Chiasson "can't even talk about it here." New York Magazine's Vulture blog reprinted the Auden poem too dirty to review. Our favorite bits below:
By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.
I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.
Aw man. What a suck.