In reading Phyllis Webb Naked Poems (1965) I am at ease imagining a pair of lesbian lovers in the opening sequences. I take my cue from assuming that the poem’s voice is like that of the author female and that the introduction of “your blouse” marks the addressee as a woman too.
An there’s that bit about the apple – pure bravura – that via a lesbian theme brings to mind Sappho
What do you really want?
want the apple on the bough in
the hand in the mouth seed
planted to the brain want
to think “apple”Phyllis Webb Naked Poems
Like the sweet-apple reddening high on the branch,
High on the highest, the apple-pickers forgot,
Or not forgotten, but one they couldn’t reach…Sappho translated by A.S. Kline
Such textual encounters are spotted after having long ago absorbed The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition by Judy Grahn — absorbed in the sense of being keenly on the look out …
And so for day 1790
07.11.2011