Maltz - Intimate kisses: the poetry of sexual pleasure

Merwin, as well as dozens of lesser-known and unpublished poets. Intimate Kisses takes a fresh look at sexual enjoyment, including the pleasure of anticipating intimate contact and remembering shared intimacies. These intensely personal poems reveal how experiences of profound sexual pleasure can connect individuals and couples with their human spirit, their beloved partner, and the sensual beauty of the world. In Intimate Kisses, women and men share original, creative ideas of intimate arousal and ecstatic union, demonstrating Michael Grossos words: Nothing is sexier than the naked mind nothing more seductive than the inven- tive imagination. intimate
kisses ALSO BY WENDYMALTZ Passionate Hearts:The Poetry of Sexual LovePrivate Thoughts:Exploring the Power of Womens Sexual FantasiesThe Sexual Healing Journey:A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

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This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or transmitted in any form, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Intimate kisses : the poetry of sexual pleasure / compiled and edited by Wendy Maltz : foreword by Thomas Moore. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. paper) ISBN 1-57731-445-x (paperback : alk. paper) 1. paper) 1.

Erotic poetry. I. Maltz, Wendy. PN6110.E65 I58 2001

Its the greatest mystery in human life and more profoundly connected with birth and death than we could ever imagine. Its tempting to reduce sex to some pet theory or romanticized ideathe expression of love, communication between lovers, physical ecstasy, a biological need, a spiritual conduit. But I doubt that at a significant level sex is any one of these things. We do know that sex is close to desire, lust, fantasy, body, love, feeling, union, jealousy, rage, aggression, dream, vitality, failure, transgression, gender, passage. Among the many Greek and Roman deities, each was sexual in a certain way, suggesting that sex itself has many altars and therefore a pantheon of meanings. If we try to do sex correctly, we fall into a troubling paradox: we get swamped by unwanted desires or we contradict our own values.

With sex its easy to accept the notion that what we repress returns to us. Suppress sexual desire and it comes back to haunt us and to invert our values and expectations. Sex makes many demands, and somehow it seems wisest to respond to them without necessarily taking them at face value. Ive counseled many men and women who were at the point of dissolving their marriages because of new sexual attractions. Sometimes its appropriate to see the poetry in those seductions, and rather than shift to a new partner, to make some changes with the old one or to cope with desire in larger ways. I think that sex is basically religious, not psychological, and certainly not physical.

Nothing human beings do is only physical. Emotions and imagination are always significantly involved. It might even be better to say that sex is primarily an act of imagination, in which, secondarily, the body is included. I realize, of course, that formal religion has enormous battles with sex, because body seems opposed to spirit and desire in conflict with principle. But these battles betray the entropy in religious institutions that have become excessively concerned about rules and moral simplicities. Real religionaffirmation of life, reverence, spirituality, the honoring of mysteriesis profoundly and positively connected to sex.

I understand lovemaking as a genuine religious ritual, and I dont mean that metaphorically. What I appreciate about this collection by Wendy Maltz is that almost every poem takes a particular moment or aspect of sex and turns it inside out to reveal a glimpse of the great mysteries of human experience. In India people are fond of telling the story of Krishnas mother, who looks into his mouth and beholds the entire universe. In a similar way, these poems look at sensuous moments of sex and glimpse the mysteries that make human life so complex and imponderable. These poems go in exactly the opposite direction of social science: they open into the fullness of reality, instead of telescoping it all into moralistic theory and agenda. Perhaps we can learn from this intelligent and pleasing gathering of poems to see the poetry that sex offers our own lives.

Nothing is more important than resisting the literalism and pragmatism we see everywhere around us. Apparently without our knowing it, culture is hard at work trying to kill off the imagination in favor of verifiable fact. Sex is one of the last outposts to resist complete co-opting. It keeps the imagination connected to desire, which is the formula for life. I am grateful beyond expression for Wendy Maltzs achievement.