Patricia Young employs something relatively rare alongside the compelling voice and well-honed images in her poem \u201cThe Hicock Girls in the Front Pew Address the Platypus,\u201d which won Arc<\/em>\u2019s 2009 Poem of the Year contest: fascinating scientific fact rubs up (literally) against the poem\u2019s metaphoric play. The consistent doubling that pervades and structures the poem gives formal resonance to the already ironic and humorous juxtaposition of exterior, pious setting with internal, desirous voice.<\/p>\n Everywhere the poem enacts a coupling, a formal realization of the girls\u2019 desire to physically couple; their longing for this contact launches itself into the poem\u2019s white space with the enjambed line ending: \u201cYou\u2019re the nearest thing \/\/.\u201d The twinning of metaphor and scientific fact, which flows through the poem as biological \u201caddress\u201d to the platypus, comes to a crux across a couplet break as well: \u201cMetaphorically speaking, \/\/ we lay an egg.\u201d Metaphorically speaking implies a birthing of desire and of physical movement, while biologically the egg invokes ovulation, a transition into a state of womanhood\u2014with accompanying adult desire\u2014for the titular \u201cgirls.\u201d Both readings coalesce here in the same meaning. Perhaps the most subtle and evocative coupling occurs between the words that end the prevalently enjambed lines: \u201ceye \/ prowling,\u201d \u201cnew \/ skin,\u201d \u201cEvolutionary \/ shuffle,\u201d \u201crhythms \/ speaking,\u201d \u201cvenomous \/ genes,\u201d \u201cthroats \/ young.\u201d These linguistic pairings suggest a deeper physical undertow, veering toward the dangerous, animalistic physicality not fully ascribed to the speakers until the poem\u2019s end. The sexuality expressed at the ending is also presaged by images such as, \u201cOur dresses stick to our skin\u201d (a coupling of fabric and body), and the contrast\u2014and obsessive awareness\u2014of the girls\u2019 bodies with the preacher\u2019s, as they join together on a single line: \u201cand fidgeting. The preacher\u2019s body sways\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The poem\u2019s couplet structure enacts the most evident formal doubling. The fourteen couplets even carry the suggestion of a doubled sonnet: for with that number, the ubiquitous form cannot help but flutter its eyelashes. The first person speaker inhabits a plural gaze (another twinning). The ghost of a sonnet is also relevant because the sexual transgression expressed in Young\u2019s poem goes beyond the ironic lust for the priest in church, to challenge poetic gender conventions. The poem explicitly interrogates categories of gender\u2014\u201cJust 2? Male and female? No other \/ fabulous possibilities, no other variations on human?\u201d\u2014while enacting a scene of transgression not only in its setting, but also in its depiction of young female desire, with a male now the object of the female gaze. The Hicock girls invert the oft-assumed male\u2019s lustful gaze directed toward a female beloved.<\/p>\n Through all this, the platypus flits and swims, with its lizard and bird genes and mammalian fur, a transgressive coupling in itself, a creature of science and metaphor, of \u201cfabulous possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Hicock Girls in the Front Pew Address the Platypus<\/em><\/p>\n ~Patricia Young<\/p>\n (from Arc<\/em> 63 Winter 2010<\/a>)<\/p>\n How we dismissed you as a beaver-tailed prank, of God\u2019s sense of humour. How that humour your secrets and 2 million years is a blink of His eye. the gum tree forests, searching for clues. The new The holes in our stockings melt like cheese. Evolutionary across Kangaroo Island. You\u2019re the nearest thing of your creation\u2014drunken sailor, madcap boy, genius 5 X\u2019s and 5 Y\u2019s\u2014mean what? How 25 theoretical sexes and fidgeting. The preacher\u2019s body sways to the rhythms we lay an egg. Strangest of creatures your venomous are flighty as a bird\u2019s. Just 2? Male and female? No other How jealous we are! That growl in our throats raw, the man at the pulpit. God help us, we can\u2019t stop How our reptilian brains sink into mud. <\/p>\n Lise Gaston<\/strong>\u2019s publications include poems, essays, and reviews in Prairie Fire<\/em>, The Malahat Review<\/em>, Lemon Hound<\/em>, and Matrix<\/em>. She lives in Montreal. Patricia Young<\/strong>\u2019s most recent book of poetry is An Autoerotic History of Swings<\/em>.<\/p>\n Patricia Young employs something relatively rare<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1732,1840,3005],"publisher":[],"resource_type":[3012],"poet-in-residence":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resources\/10044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resources"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/resources"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resources\/10044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10044"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10044"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=10044"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ndeclared you a hoax, later cited you as proof<\/p>\n
\nhas lately been lacking. At long last you\u2019ve given up<\/p>\n
\nHow you excite the zoologists, up at first light, prowling<\/p>\n
\npreacher rails on and on. Our dresses stick to our skin.<\/p>\n
\nrelic, how your genetic code sequence is a slow shuffle<\/p>\n
\nto a missing link. How explain God at the moment<\/p>\n
\nclown with a goofy touch? Your complex chromosomes\u2014<\/p>\n
\nis no laughing matter. This we sit straight-backed<\/p>\n
\nof his own voice. It rises. We rise. Metaphorically speaking,<\/p>\n
\nleg spurs contradict webbed toes, your lizard genes<\/p>\n
\nfabulous possibilities, no other variations on human?<\/p>\n
\nis the lust of small furry mammals. He\u2019s young,<\/p>\n
\nseeing him from 25 angles, having him 25 ways.<\/p>\n
\nOur 4-chambered hearts steer us like rudders.<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
How shall<\/em> we excite the zoologists? Maybe Arc<\/em> knows.<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"