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Distillations by James Benedict Courtesy of the International Gay and Lesbian Review http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/oneigla/onepress/ |
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Review of Distillations I XY Action Poetry from Australia (2001); Distillations II XY Action Poetry from Denmark (2001); and Distillations III Suites Action Writing from Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, San Francisco, Munich and Copenhagen (2002), three books of poems by James Benedict, X Press (Denmark), paperbacks, free to "archives, libraries, resource centers, and individuals world wide as long as stock lasts." E-mail the author at Jamesbenedict77@hotmail.com 
Reading these remarkable books by Danish poet James Benedict, who writes in perfectly fluid English, is like reading the diary of a sexually omnivorous gay traveler. If the reader participates with the speaker, he/she experiences the archetypal sexual quest: the hunger, the hunt, the conquest, the feast, the aftermath. However, there is a huge difference between the average sex addict and the persona (no doubt the poet himself) in these poems. The difference is that this quester is looking for and finding, to use the words of Robert Goss (in Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up), "the tribal sexual connections and sacred bonds that gays celebrate . . . ." In other words, like the mystical poet Rumi, Benedict finds in same-sex bonding (physical bonding for Benedict) a spiritual union as well as a sexual one. Benedict's quester finds in sex a "healing passion" (Distillations I).
This does not mean all is joy, for Lilith, the shadow side of the feminine, guides him in all three books. He suffers a bashing from one of his tricks, and is not always successful in his searchings. Finding most of his partners in outdoor cruising spots, saunas, and even chat rooms, he seems to prefer opposites. In the first book, set in Australia, he has no problem finding physical, racial, and intellectual opposites. Indeed, with such opposites, he is able, momentarily at least, to form a psychic whole. To a "Punk Spunk" he writes: "Lend your brawn / To my brain / And give me more." At home in Denmark in Distillations II, he says, "For days / I have needed a black man / I have dreamt of him," and he finds an "Ethiopian boy": ". . . I explore his magnificent / Natural young man's body . . . ." The next poem celebrates an encounter with a Sri Lankan: His skin is rich radiant cocoa Charged with sublime energy Endlessly regenerating With affection. I swim in it as in a sea I dive into reservoirs Of live water; The spiritual elixir Emanating from his body. The young man is a "perpetuum mobile," an alchemical term Benedict glosses as "[a] Perpetual motion machine, a metonym for the philosophical stone, the goal of the alchemical process which according to Jung represented the integration of the shadow or the repressed into consciousness." Union with the Sri Lankan, the poem says, is a way "To indulge in the magic / Of communication / Of touch / Of body worship / To transcend / To the ecstatic realm / That awaits us / Through the other." The cynical would claim the speaker is using the other as a sexual fantasy object, but such a conclusion would reduce the encounter to the merely physical and ignore the full context of the three books. Yes, of course fantasy plays a part (in what sexual attraction does it not?), yet the poet emphasizes again and again his spiritual union with partners both male and on rare occasions female is embedded in the physical (pardon the pun). The extraordinary thing about these "action" poems is that not only are they set firmly in a context of Eastern and Western religious and literary traditions, but also they reveal a persona who has almost no sexual prejudices or "types." He does it with young men and men older than himself (in their 40s and 50s), with the flat stomached body beautiful and the "hefty archetypal Viking." "The subjects [of his poems]," he declares, are pleasure; Exploration of the self, Desires for transcendence, Epiphanies, love, comradery; The quotidian as spice box. He realizes his sexual desires and encounters are muses for his "creative writing . . . I am transported / Floating in signifyers / Surfing the whitecaps / Of hormonal wave functions. . . ." The subject matter of his work results in many rejections, but then his "main purpose / Is to stir the broth / Seek the limit / Dream of transgression." According to the Random House Webster's College Dictionary, to distill means, paradoxically, "to concentrate, purify, or separate." (Distillation is also an alchemical term, and Benedict uses the concept in ways a brief review can hardly expand upon.) The sexual/spiritual quester in these books moves from one concentrated, purifying encounter to separation to another encounter; from one period of teaching (of intellectual work, for he is an academic) to another sexual binge: Xmas is approaching After months of disciplined work I need to get away To be crazy for a week And I get a ticket For Berlin. (Distillations III)
I have no problem per se with promiscuity (I would be hypocritical if I did!), as long as one follows Benedict's own credo: "Safety and quality first." However, if one chooses promiscuity, one must accept its consequences, which include the possibilities of violence, disease, and loneliness. Unless I've missed something, I see no longing to settle down with one person in these poems. Neither do I see any anguish over the inevitable solitude that being single and having many sexual partners entails. Instead, these Distillations are a numinous celebration of sex and the body. A word about the poems and the printing. The poems are in free verse, with a few prose poems, and a very occasional use of rhyme, mostly for humor: "Loving myself / For pursuing exercise / I met him gymwise . . . ." All the books are illustrated with black and white (photocopied) pictures. Since I am a person who likes illustrations, even in my poetry books, this pleases me, though I wish the quality were better. Since Benedict's approach is archetypal, a page of mazes from around the world (from the Hopi Pueblo in Arizona to Rajasthan, India) with a Minotaur smack in the middle is quite appropriate. The poems in the first book are in single columns, which makes them more readable than the double columns of books two and three. Still, I would rather have the double columns than none of Benedict's rich, highly allusive, and joyful celebrations of same-sex desire and fulfillment. 2003 Review by Clifton Snider Clifton Snider is the author of eight highly-acclaimed books of poetry, including The Alchemy of Opposites (Chiron Review Press, 2000). His novel about a bisexual rock star, Loud Whisper, was published by Xlibris in 2000, and his coming out/coming of age novel, Bare Roots, was published by Xlibris in 2001. His most recent novel isWrestling with Angels: A Tale of Two Brothers, also from Xlibris (2001). A specialist in Jungian literary criticism, Snider teaches writing and literature at California State University, Long Beach. Courtesy of the International Gay and Lesbian Review http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/oneigla/onepress/ |
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Some Christians might object to Benedict's use of "Xmas" (he doesn't use similar dismissive abbreviations for other religious traditions). Perhaps he rebels against a Christian upbringing or environment. In any case, as he settles in Europe, and in his own native Jutland, he decides it is time to explore his own culture, which for him includes other Danes. ("Can we cure our Nordic hearts," he asks, "Without wearing them on our sleeves?") And even though he intends to be "crazy for a week," he can't stop writing, not even at the baths, or so the poems claim.