I Have Thirteen Penises
— for Drew Gardner
My first penis is a reclusive pet alligator
My second penis is so not a girl figure skater
My third penis was never declared unconstitutional
My fourth penis is not the winner of the contest for the coolest
pimped-out cubicle
My fifth penis does not believe that unicorns are taking over
my fourth penis with lasers
My sixth penis never ever removed a brain tumor using a taser
My seventh penis is not the giraffe who swallowed My Little Pony
My eighth penis does not use Comic Sans when lonely
My ninth penis is doing a background check on me
My tenth penis punched a werewolf in the face in Kentucky
My eleventh penis wants to know how come a cupcake is not a mineral
My twelfth penis wants to know if any other planets besides Earth
are spherical
My thirteenth penis resembles—oddly—a whippoorwill.
--Sharon Mesmer
From 2003 to 2010 I was a member of the Flarf poetry collective: 30+ poets utilizing Google to mine the internet for content, emailing the work around several times a day via our listserv, and making new poems by putting lines from each other’s poems through Google. The group came together in response to the post-9/11 overwhelm of political/cultural/social absurdity. Drew Gardner, to whom the poem is dedicated, was one of the original members of the collective, and I’m sure this poem was composed by putting a line from the poem he’d sent around that day through Google, though at this point I don’t recall what that line was. –Sharon Mesmer
Sharon Mesmer is a poet, fiction writer, essayist and teacher. Her most recent poetry collection, Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof Books), was voted “Best of 2015” by Entropy magazine. Other collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch, The Virgin Formica, Half Angel/Half Lunch and Vertigo Seeks Affinities (chapbook, Belladonna Books). Four of her poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (second edition, 2013). She has also published three fiction collections, The Empty Quarter and In Ordinary Time (both from Hanging Loose Press) and Ma Vie à Yonago, from Hachette in French translation. Her essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine/The Cut, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Purple, Commonweal, and the Brooklyn Rail, among others. Her awards include a Jerome Foundation mentoring award (grantee: Elisabeth Workman, poet) and two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. She teaches at New York University and The New School and lives in Brooklyn.
--Photo by Sophie Malleret
The New York School Diaspora (Part Thirty-Eight): Sharon Mesmer
Sharon Mesmer’s ebullient “I Have Thirteen Penises” shares something of the shock-immune élan of Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Ave Maria.” It can be regarded as a more explicit version of Joy Harjo’s splendid “She Had Some Horses.” The presumptive female speaker dedicates the poem to “Drew Garner” who could be woman or man or both or neither—it doesn’t matter. The poem asserts a special freedom for its penises. They belong not to a particular corporeal form, or a lover’s pocket (à la In the Realm of the Senses) but to language and imagination. Anatomy need not be destiny.
The thirteen penises are characterized by what they are (“a reclusive pet alligator”); what they are not (“a girl figure skater”); what they have not been declared (“unconstitutional” or “the winner of the contest for coolest pimped-out cubicle”); what they do not believe (“My fifth penis does not believe that unicorns are taking over my fourth penis with lasers”); what they have “never ever” done: (“removed a brain tumor using a taser”); what (again) they are not (“the giraffe who swallowed My Little Pony”); and what they do not use (“Comic Sans when lonely”). The poem’s third stanza shifts to proactivity, to what the penises are doing (“a background check on me”); and what they want to know (“how come a cupcake is not a mineral” and “if any other planets besides Earth are spherical”).
The ultimate, the thirteenth penis, is characterized by its form—something the poem has thus far avoided, a challenge when discussing a body part relentlessly tied to shape and parodied by mock-embodiment in obelisks, produce, and joke pasta. This is an apt ending for a poem that plays with expectation and surprise, and that surprises us throughout with impetuous free-verse rhymes (akin to doggerel but far from dogged). its scheme, both manic and maniacal, goes roughly as follows: aabb/aacc/ccbbb.
The superstitions surrounding the number thirteen darken the ending, as does the penis’s comparison to a “whippoorwill,” a bird named for its ominous song, that if heard near a house signifies “death, or at least bad luck.” On the positive side, it may cure an aching back--if the sufferer turns somersaults in time to its call (Almanac.com).
The insertion of the word “oddly” is humorous—especially since non-odd comparisons include a pugilist practicing on a werewolf. Almanac.com also informs us that “whippoorwills do their courting after sunset,” and that their excellent camouflage means they are more often heard than seen. Sharon Mesmer’s wonderfully exhaustive “I Have Thirteen Penises” teaches that even the most well-known appendage may have new things to impart; that penile silence can be broken by poetry in thirteen (are you listening, Wallace Stevens?) irrepressible ways.
--Angela Ball
A brilliant analysis of a wonderful poem by the extraordinarily talented Sharon Mesmer, who was my colleague for many years at the New Schoool. Thank you, Angela -- and thank you, Sharon.
Posted by: David Lehman | November 08, 2022 at 11:06 AM
Thank you, David!
Posted by: Angela Ball | November 08, 2022 at 12:20 PM
Terrific poem, Sharon! And wonderful commentary, Angela! As someone born on the 13th, it has always been my lucky number....superstitions aside.
Posted by: Denise Duhamel | November 08, 2022 at 01:39 PM
Thank you so much, Denise. Any day with you born on it is lucky.
Posted by: Angela Ball | November 09, 2022 at 12:44 PM