Sex stories: Naked Girls Reading Poetry

As a former English major who needs little prompting to nerd out over a sestina and then has to explain what a sestina is, Friday's Naked Girls Reading was not just a reading, but an EVENT. Mimi First began the evening by reading excerpts of famous authors on what it means to perform poetry, remarking rather coyly that poetry works through the medium of the audience's body, not the performer's. The commingling of nudity and performance seemed suddenly and especially profound. What is the act of creation - be it painting, music, poetry - if not a laying bare for all to see and judge? The nakedness became both incredibly important and completely beside the point.

As my companion put it,

"The nudity was almost more of an afterthought, an incidental hook that was used to bring people in so that they could be exposed to powerful words."

Aside from a few dirty limericks, there was nothing lascivious about the works that were read. Not even the usual dirty poems that are part of the literary canon, like Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins Make Much of Time." Instead, the girls took turns reading Frank O'Hara, Soren Kierkegaard, Sharon Olds and Pablo Neruda (whose words, coincidentally, have consistently lured me into bed by whomever has read or spoken them to me. The same thing happens when someone buys me a chalupa, but that's another story). Each girl read with sensitivity and a captivating sense of awe. You could tell that great care was taken in researching and selecting the works that they chose to read aloud. Dierdre Doll led us on a fascinating exchange between famous feuding lovers Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, interspersing verse, history and her own insights about the poems' meanings.

Oddly, the element I found to be most distracting was not exposed thighs or rosy nipples, (though all were stunning) but the loud train that kept rumbling by, making it difficult to hear what was going on at times.

Between readings, the audience was encouraged to create poetry of our own, using the magnetic poetry at our tables. This was partially to honor the special guest, Dave Kapell, inventor of magnetic poetry, and was also part of that night's contest. Whoever wrote the best poem, as decided by the Naked Girls, was then given the honor of composing another one on Mina Méchante's bare back. There were some decent poems created, my favorite one beginning, "F*ck you, Mister Trouser Machine" and ending with "My chimichanga wants you." But in the end, my table triumphed and we were given several sheets of word stickers to craft something approximating verse. The results are what you see pictured above.

The insights that spilled forth from pairing these two seemingly unrelated yet provocative experiences (naked girls and reading) propelled the audience toward a deeper understanding of the power, purpose and significance of the spoken word.

The next reading is on July 10th, with a "freedom of choice" theme in honor of our inalienable rights to barbecue. And to watch naked girls transform words into worlds. Don't miss it.

Related: Get some tale at Naked Girls Reading