Jennie Orvino is shameless. Regulars of the poetry
scene in California's North Bay Area already know her
as a writer and performer who ventures willingly into
taboo territory, guided by the compass of her curious
heart. From flirtation to polyamory, masturbation to
menopause, no topic is off-limits. Often sensuous,
sometimes funny or angry (or both), but always
accurate, Jennie's poems dance fearlessly on the hot
buttons we've all been told not to push.
Jennie's work has appeared previously in such places
as the New York Quarterly, the Beloit Poetry Journal,
Shameless Hussy Review, and Clean Sheets. She has
published four chapbooks: Like a Tree (1969); The
Fish, The Virgin and the Lion (1972); Awake (1975);
and Heart of the Peony (1996). Now, with a
spoken-word album called Make Love Not War, her
distinctive voice has reached a new level of exposure.
The album runs the gamut from political poems that
deal with the physical and emotional fallout of war to
poems about love in various manifestations: for a
daughter, for a lover, for the self. Erotic prose
pieces such as "Worship Service," "Moon Dance," and "Me
the Queen" describe, in language at once lyrical and
direct, the art of the act of lovemaking.
I met with Jennie recently for a stimulating
conversation about poetry, sex, guilt, freedom, and
the human shadow.
CS: There are so many words and images about sex out
there in the culture now -- what works, what doesn't
work for you? How would you classify your new CD?
JO: Well, what somebody told me about my work is that
they feel like it's not just descriptions of acts;
there's something deeper there, a soul to it, or a
sense of spirituality. And that's the kind of thing I
like to read, as well. When I'm critiquing other
people's work, I often find myself saying, "This is
very nice, but it's just a description of acts. What
else is going on here?" There seems to be a fine line
between erotica and pornography.
CS: What would you say is the difference?
JO: It's in the eye of the beholder. To me, pornography includes degradation,
disrespect for women, exploitation of children,
violence, and a sort of form without substance. To
me, erotica is more literary. And porn is so
glorified now. There's so much money
being made, even by big, "respectable"
corporations who hide the profits among the other things they
produce. People like Larry Flynt are actually
tame compared to a lot of what's out there.
CS: What turns you on as a writer? When you write
about sex, when you think about sex from a creative
perspective, what are you drawn to?
JO: Well, I like being free, experimental. Once I
wrote a list of 101 things that turn me on --
everything from hot tubs to oral sex to dressing up to
being tied to the bed. Basically, I'm
interested in anything that isn't violent and doesn't
degrade. But then, I'm also starting to get
interested in power stuff -- I mean, who knows?
CS: Right, and there's a tricky line there, because a
lot of what's especially exciting and arousing is
whatever happens to be dangerous to you. In his book
The Erotic Mind, Jack Morin talks about the idea
that eroticism is a way for people to deal with their
shadow side, by transforming something that's painful
or harmful into something that feels good.
JO: Hmm...now I'm thinking, what's my shadow? I
suppose it has to do with the fact that I get
involved with people who are involved with other
people. That's my edge, I guess.
I would love to be in open, polyamorous relationships,
and I know they're difficult. For me, I think the most important thing
is that I need to be honest.
CS: That can be risky, being honest. Sometimes it
scares people.
JO: Yeah. I have very little guilt, even though I
was raised a Catholic.
CS: How did you pull that off?
JO: [Laughs] I don't know. I just don't feel guilty
about anything that I do sexually. Why?
I don't know why. Because I believe that it's so
rare to really connect with somebody, I like to act on it when I do.
I feel guilty if I'm thoughtless, or sarcastic, or unconscious with someone and it hurts their feelings. Doing something I don't really want to do, that
makes me feel bad too.
I have noticed that when I'm not involved with
somebody, I don't write about sex. Definitely, the
pieces on the CD are drawn from experience.
CS: Is it one person you're referring to, or many?
JO: No, they're all composites, that's what I'm
telling everybody: "Don't take anything personally,
but you are in there. Somewhere." [Laughs.] Yeah, I
put a bunch of different stuff together. I had a
wonderful lover last year, and I was very, very
turned on by this person. So that's when I started
writing the erotic prose pieces that are on the album.
I wrote four of them for him and gave them to him for
his birthday.
CS: There's a nice symmetry here, with "Worship
Service" on one end of the album and "Me, The Queen"
on the other end. From fellatio to cunnilingus.
JO: Yes, I read "Me, The Queen" at one
event and got a really positive reaction. My readings
are like little focus groups.
CS: Where have you found a venue to read pieces about
sex?
JO: Well, I've hosted a couple of salons at my
home, with erotic art and poetry and aphrodisiac food.
And then I met with some women who were putting
together an anthology of women's experiences with
orgasm, and they commissioned a piece about incorporating
masturbation into partner sex. My masturbation poem,
"If You Want Something Done Right," has made the
rounds of a lot of poetry readings and slams, but some of the
other stuff, like "Moon Dance," has never been read in public.
CS: So exploring all this sexual stuff in writing, in
performance, is it easy? Do you have any nervousness
about putting it out there?
JO: If I have it, I don't let it stop me. It's not
like I'm saying "fuck" every other word. Just because
I deal with sexual topics doesn't mean that I'm
vulgar. On the other hand, "fucking" is a very versatile
word and I'm not opposed to using it as a noun, a verb, an adjective.
For example -- can I read this poem to you?
CS: Please.
The thought of writing poetry
is the same as
the thought of you
fucking her
as she screamed
like an animal --
my writing teacher,
her notes so insightful
in the margins of my work.
There was no good reason
not to tell me, I wouldn't have
minded, really, because it was
fucking for a good cause --
grief -- and she asked you.
But for no good reason
you didn't tell me, and now
the thought of writing poetry is
the same as the thought of you
fucking her, or any friend of mine
who might appear in poems of yours
about loving and fucking women.
Writing poetry and fucking
women who write poetry
is what I know about you and me
after 20 years of loving
and writing fucking poetry
together.
That one's for my second poet ex-husband. I've been
married to two poets.
CS: One of whom left you for the "black Cadillac" you
mention in "Main Squeeze Blues"?
JO: Yes, that's my daughter's father.
CS: In your poem "The General's Dream", which opens
the CD, you ask: "What if the compulsion to war was
really a longing to be touched?" Is war erotic?
What's the attraction there?
JO: I am not a person who enjoys linking sex and
violence. In fact, I totally deplore it, and I
deplore pornography that makes that connection. But,
obviously, there are many people who don't share my
view. What I'm trying to ask in that poem is, can we
take that impulse and just...turn it somehow, so it
isn't so destructive? Can't you find the same kind of
satisfaction in sexuality that you find in killing
people?
CS: Why did you choose the themes of war and sex?
JO: I didn't really choose them, it's just what I've
been writing about. One of the things that
I'm really passionate about is sexuality and free
expression, especially for women, to get them in touch
with their power. I tend to write mostly about
relationships anyway. My poems usually have
very sensual images, and I've always tried to write about
peace. Even in the anti-war poems, there's always
something sensual.
CS: You mean in the language itself, or in what it's
describing?
JO: Well, both. Especially in the title poem, "Make
Love Not War," where I stick a moment of lovemaking in
the middle of it. For me, that piece was the bridge
between the two themes of the recording.
CS: So you've got two things going on here, both of
which make people uncomfortable. You've got war,
which people don't want to acknowledge is going on...
JO: Exactly...
CS: And you've got sex, which is totally natural and
happens all the time, but it embarrasses people and
they don't want to look at that, either. So this is
good, you've got dangerous stuff here.
JO: I started thinking about that when
my boss bought an advance copy of the CD.
What was he going to think? So I started to worry, and
at the same time I thought, you know, what other people
think of me is none of my business! I just need to do
what I need to do. I mean, in some circles, my work
is tame. It's interesting, though -- I feel
less inhibited talking about blow jobs and anal sex
than I do talking about my anti-war politics. And especially
in the current climate of clamping down on dissent, on
anything that's not rah-rah in support of Bush's policies.
CS: Sure. And yet you are saying these things,
despite the risk. "Juggernaut" is such a powerful
piece, and it feels so timely. When did you write it?
JO: I don't remember exactly -- it was a few years
ago.
CS: So, post-Desert Storm, pre-Taliban...
JO: Yeah, I think it was in 2000. We're having
so many wars now, I'm starting to lose track. Quite a
few of them show up on the CD -- there's the Gulf War,
and "The Dream of Undoing" is about the NATO bombing of Kosovo,
and then "Muslim Holy Day" is about Afghanistan.
I really haven't had a lot of bad feedback. I've been
very well supported so far. [Producer] David
Brownstein and I had a creative marriage in the making
of the CD that was excellent. I love David. He's a dear friend,
he's been my personal coach for a year, and he's very talented.
I've had people of such great quality to work with --
there's my designer, Brad Huck, and all the musicians.
Now I understand why people at those awards ceremonies just go on and on,
thanking everybody.
CS: What's your take on the evolution of sex writing
in America?
JO: M. Christian said that women don't want to read
erotica written by men, and men are more interested in
erotica written by women, so there's a great market
now for the kind of thing I do. Almost a glut,
actually. But it's good, because when I was coming
up, there was nothing but crappy pornography out
there. My husband used to bring home these movies,
and I'd try to watch them, and they would not turn me
on -- in fact, they would turn me off. I'd feel less
like having sex after I watched them. And I still
haven't seen many movies that turn me on, not on the
level of the really high-quality written work that's
out there now. Although I love homoerotic movies,
and there are some good ones, like Love and
Human Remains, Priest, Urbania, and that series on HBO Queer as
Folk. You get to see all those gorgeous male bodies.
But then, I like Sex and the City, too.
CS: What would you like to see that you haven't seen,
or what haven't you seen enough of?
JO: I'd like to see more really great sex scenes in
movies, instead of cutting away to the wind blowing
through the trees. That would be a boon. It really infuriates me when they cut out the sex when showing films on TV...or on airplanes. (They charge you five bucks for the headset and then dub out the 4-letter words!)"
CS: Why is sex so fascinating?
JO: All I know is, if I'm making love with somebody,
making that connection, the whole world looks
different. It's like, this is the life! I even feel smarter.
But if I'm not truly interested in the person,
there's nothing worse than trying to be sexual with
them. What is the magic of that? I would love to be
turned on all the time, but it just doesn't happen
that way.
