On watching Judith Butler.
Limping, I've pursued you into French
and from this vantage, prop myself on subtitles
to hear the German. Far more suited: you envigour,
immaculately dressed in clothes declaiming
peur de la femininite - which we can play with later .
Put out the artist's too-faint luminescence
regarding her own work: pas blesse, these women
who recline enmeshed with the telephone, the very
(pinnacle? I cannot catch - ) of female discourse: they
reach out remotely, safely, still recoiling from the touch
(I think as much.
I'm half-supplying answers for your
hard-set and teutonic lips round which a wisp of Romance
dances, tacked on by the philologist.)
I'm barely on the
fringes: all my waving up and down the orange pavement
heralds taxis, not the tricks turned by breast binding.
I paint my nails, my gender trouble too-
tough girls. Judith Butler - I want to undress you and that
poses problems, displaces serious thoughts with other ones,
upends the notion that women who speak philosophy
have transformed to prism'd things and thwart the common gaze.
For you, I realigned my days, and, spine well broken -
locate in my imperfect translation,
blanks designed to entertain the notion that
in-between the enveloping logics of transgression
lie forgotten catacombs of devastation and emotion.
"Alice Tarbuck is a poet and playwright. Her work has been published in various magazines, including Stalking Elk, The Phoenix and Bedroom Stories 2. This poem centres around watching a series of lectures by feminist philosopher Judith Butler..."
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