Terrance Hayes: Critical Post

            In his book, Lighthead, Terrance Hayes discusses many events, some fictitious and some autobiographical.  His poetry brings up several different themes through repetition.  I found that one of the most interesting and prevalent themes is that of sex and sexuality.  This theme is expressed in many of the poems in Hayes’ book, however I feel the three poems that best illustrate sex and sexuality are “The Elegant Tongue,” in the first half, and “Bullethead for Earthell” and “Cocktails with Orpheus,” in the second half.

            “The Elegant Tongue” uses a lot of descriptive language, mostly centralized on kissing, which is often a precursor to sex.  However, towards the end of the poem, there are some heavy implications of sex.  For instance, the lines, “Darling, kiss me again in the nastiest possible way./ When the blind fondle the elephant’s trunk, an organ/ of fifteen thousand miraculous multipurpose muscles, and hiss,” definitely describe the elephant’s trunk as something sensual.  I think he likens it to a penis, especially when he uses the term, “organ,” and by referencing the “miraculous multipurpose muscles.”  Also, Hayes goes on to speak of the trunk from the perspective of the blind, a speech loaded with insinuations.  “This creature is most like the serpent in Eden,/ tell them, If there is goodness in your heart, it will come/ to your mouth, and if that doesn’t work, tell them,/ In the dark it’s not the forked tongue that does the piercing.” This part has many points that make it highly sexual, the first being the comparison to a serpent, reiterating the phallic nature of the trunk.  Next, Hayes makes a line break at the phrase, “it will come,” which I interpret as a reference to ejaculation, coupled with the other half of the phrase, “to your mouth,” it adds the act of fellatio to the poem.  He goes on to say, “In the dark it’s not the forked tongue that does the piercing,” which appears to be a reference to penetration and intercourse.

            Hayes continues to use sex as a theme in the second half of his book, exhibited briefly in “Bullethead for Earthell.”  He discusses, “A naked towel, turned up to Heaven/ on the bed with the same sprawl/ of softness as the woman upon it,” which is an intimate description of a woman, sprawled nude, on a bed.  “Hayes goes on to discuss la petit mort in the lines, “…I realize/ in the moment preceding the moment/ of death, does not represent the moment/ of death.  It could be the broth of a spasm,/ the fever of gasping, the moment of death./ It could be the fitful woman holding you/ to the earth as the seed leaves your body.”  This is an obvious reference, not to true death, but to orgasm.  He seems to find it, not representative of death, but more of life and living.

            In “Cocktails with Orpheus,” Hayes takes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where she forgets him and spends life in the underworld, and alters it slightly, saying that Eurydice left, had a decent life.  The poem speaks literally about being in a bar with Orpheus, talking about life.  Suddenly, the poem switches to a sexual theme, the speaker stating “I am behind a woman whose skirt is hiked above her hips, as bound/ as touch permits, saying don’t forget me when I become the liquid/ out of which names are born, salt-milk, milk-sweet, and animal made.”  This is obviously a description of a sexual encounter, but there is an interesting reference to the Orpheus myth in the line “don’t forget me,” as Eurydice forgot Orpheus.  The liquid referred to is pretty apparently semen.  There is a sadness to the lines, “I want to be human above the body, uprooted and right, a fold/ of pleas released, but I am a black wound, what’s left of the deed.”  This seems to describe sex, but in a sorrowful, longing way, where the speaker seeks love instead of just sex.  It seems, however, that the speaker cannot find love, as he doesn’t love himself, having a negative evaluation of his self-worth.  He seems to regret his own birth, resenting his parents a little with the line “what’s left of the deed.”