Pleasure in the Face of Death: Poetry and Self-Realization

Rita Dirks

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Chapter 4 Pleasure in the Face of Death

Poetry and Self-Realization

In: Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World

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Rita Dirks

Rita Dirks
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 153–180

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004549388_006

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Abstract

With poetry sales and online readership increasing substantially in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began to make the connection between—the threat of—death, isolation and self-rediscovery aided by the act of reading poetry. In this chapter, I examine the effects of the pandemic strictures on the self through the potentially transformative power of reading poetry. The reading of poetry during this enforced pause from the “normal” offers in its sequestered space and solitude the freedom to be, freedom from external determining structures of identity. The seductive pleasure of reading leads to the pleasure of knowing—the self. To this end, I interview two people who report that in the face of possible death and loss and experienced solitude they reclaimed something that identified their true desire. Both speak to the space the pandemic had created to read and peel away false layers, to unmask the real self in terms of identity and desire—like discovering their sexual orientation and their own sexuality. Ironically, pandemic restrictions and the turn to poetry have allowed individuals to find the language to express and respond to poetry’s potentially transformative power.

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Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World

Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal

Series: Critical Studies Online, Volume: 42 and Critical Studies, Volume: 42

Cover Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004549388

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 11 Sep 2023

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Front Matter

Part 1 Beyond Repression: Defying the Moral Codes of 21st Century Authoritarianism

Part 2 Beyond Sex: Embodying Pleasure and Sexuality in Times of Social Distancing

Part 3 Beyond Gender: Challenging Patriarchal and Heteronormative Sex Education through Alternative Pornography

Part 4 Beyond the Senses: Immersing into Self-Exploration through Visual and Plastic Arts

Part 5 Beyond the Ego: Embracing the Spiritual Possibilities of Desire

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Chapter 4 Pleasure in the Face of Death

Poetry and Self-Realization

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World

Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal

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