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The reason you so often in literature have a naked woman
walk out of her house that way, usually older, in her front garden
or on the sidewalk, oblivious, is because of exactly how I feel right now.
You tend to hear about how it felt to come upon such a mythical beast,
the naked woman on the street, the naked man in a tree, and that makes
sense because it is wonderful to take the naked woman by the hand
And know that you will remember that moment for the rest of your life
because of what it means, the desperation, the cataclysm of what it takes
to leave your house naked or to take off your clothes in the tree.
It feels good to get the naked man to come down from there by a series
of gentle commands and take him by the elbow or her by the hand and lead
him to his home like you would care for a bird or a human heart.
Still, if you want instead, for once, to hear about how the person came to be
standing there, naked, outside, you should talk to me right now, quickly,
before I forget the details of this way that I feel. I feel like walking out.
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Commentarium (24 Comments)
This window was not where I wanted to go. Silly me, not PC(L).
Still. Enough for me to c, v to my loves desire.
Hope this works.
God knows, I work.
Great poem! Its isn't really erotic, but it uses the erotic connotations of 'nakedness' to seduce the reader to read on and find the utter desperation at the end. Very clever. I also like the tone of voice (you know, the voice you hear in your head when you read a poem... what do you mean you don't hear a voice when you read, what are you, a Martian?). I hope the writer feels a lot better now than she is suggesting in this poem because I would like to read more of her work. Be it erotic or not.
Nerve should be commended for featuring such an impressive poem. I don't know which surprised me more: that the work was non-erotic or that it is of such stellar quality for a venue not dedicated to poetry.
Ms. Hecht is obviously an artist to be reckoned with; "Naked" is potent verse and shows great technical skill, as well. I, too, look forward to reading more of her poems. As a fan of erotic poetry, in particular, I hope she has a few truths about sex up her sleeve... or up her skirt.
How crystal clear the message, how lyrical the tone; really makes a picture in your mind. Plays both sides of the mind game: the naked and the clothed: the wistful-follow-your-dreams-activist and the back-in-the-real-world-conformist: the rescuee and the rescuer. Great poem; great poet; Encore ! Encore !!-CH 4/27/00
wow. amazing. beautiful. more from hecht, please!
People will be reading this person for a long time, decades and maybe much longer. She writes several different kinds of strong poems, but "Naked" is an example of what I believe she does best: she conjures a profoundly emotional experience of the irrational, suffused with the most lucid rationality. Dickinson does this, but with a blinding superhuman intensity, in incandescendt tiny chunks. This Jennifer M. Hecht still sounds like a human being: does not speak to us from above in continuous seraphic thunder (Milton, Dickinson); nor burden the reader with all the anecdotal, site-specific realia of her speakers' situation in return for a single insight which springs from its jack-in-the-box at the closural moment (Olds); nor evoke the emotional heat of the irrational (sex, mortality, Dionysus, etc.) and allow that heat to partially melt the poem (Lowell). This writer JMH has a fine ear, a teeming field of live metaphors, and the mighty intelligence necessary for a poetic career full of self-overcoming & continuous discovery. So: thanks for the music.
What's all the fuss? The poem's utterly unspectacular! Some nice turns, yes, some intellect, deconstructionist reasoning, but the academic makes this one a bore, Nerve. Who are these people going nuts over this poem vs Olds? Hecht might not be a one-trick pony, but is she a show horse? I don't know about THAT.
Sublime.
What makes me happy when I read a poem. That the poem hurts me. Good poem always hurt me & then i know that I'm alive. The haze here, the haze that is on the pain, so that we can observe another pain, is like it would be if we had spent the afternoon crying and then tried to cheer up and went online and read a poem with red bleary eyes & wondered why the poet insited on talking to us, to me, my us, we. I was absolutely stunned that someone could crawl inside this way of feeling, or up in the branches of this way of feeling, and still be able to say, but I'm glad she said. I, actually, I feel better. Don't walk out on us, you poet you. Or come back, let us wrap you in a blanket. I mean this as a song of praise.
Oh dear. Without an automatic spellcheck my little love letter below looks even more as if a monkey had a go at this.
Thank you Jennifer M. Hecht, for such a beautiful work. It moved me as poetry seldom does.
Keep them coming Ms Hecht!! (Pay no attention to those tin ears who scoff - your work is
fresh and clean and powerful) Thank you!!!!
Dr. A. Allison
Good poems always hurt me? What that about? How does this poem hurt someone?
Something about this really...hit. I guess the feeling about being outside, naked, feeling the wind and the sun, and the possibility of being seen while experiencing everything else.... Thanks
hooder
I really enjoyed this piece. I love it's sense of the fragility of the human spirit. It's sad realisation thatthat we too often are unaware of this fragility. It reminds us that "connecting" clothes the naked
person. thank you.
some nice moments but I don't get all the fuss-- it doesn't really sing
jsonzhou.@163.com
WOW!!
that was great!! i loved it.... i am dying to know how she came to feel that way~
A beautifully tragic poem that made me feel naked and, sadly, alone. Wonderful in it's simplicity.
Wow, this is great!
Naked?
well .. i think that it's great to be in the raw .. but i'm not all that sure if it's normal .. i think that i'm normal .. but .. deep down .. i know that i'd rather not be wearing anything .. .... i just want to be comfortable ..
in a way .. it's sort of a thrill to be naked .. feeling free .. Awe so .. Free .. .. i thought that i would just share that with someone ..
I stumbled across this poem after entering my own name in a search engine, just being bored and wondering who is doing what with my name on the Web. Not particularly looking for anything or expecting anything, I did in fact enjoy the author's poem, more specifically the prose/complete-sentence style that I rarely if ever saw in the kind of poetry I studied in high school. And the author's name has mine in it.
Michael Hecht
nice. finally a decent poem in your rag. cheers.
i want to more information about this matter becouse this first time
i send to this weeb sit and i want to now more
Now you say something