Poetry and Sex

Poetry and Sex

Since the beginning of human existence, there has been once practice,

one instinct, one single obsession that we cannot escape. Some may

call it necessary; others say it’s a gift. It can be controlling,

enlightening but it’s oh so powerful. It isn’t the need for food,

safety or shelter. It isn’t love nor greed nor vanity, but sex, ladies

and gentlemen.

With the evolution of human communication poets have been using the

power of words to describe the practice of sex, and the emotions that

come with it. As a guest speaker invited to this years festival, I

have explored how sex is expressed through poetry from a multitude of

cultures and eras. It has become apparent that the traditions and

values of a society shapes the form, right down to the style of

language and words used, of poetry from its respective era. While

values have and will continue to change, sex is a universal practice,

and therefore a universal theme of poets the world over.

To demonstrate this, I will analyze three poems: ‘Kubla Khan,’ by

Samuel Coleridge, ‘Sexual Healing,’ by Marvin Gaye and David Ritz and

‘Adultery’ by Carol Ann Duffy. Although all poems have the same

central theme of sex, the way they express it differs quite radically.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

These are the opening lines of Kubla Khan, in which the era of its

poet is made clear. Samuel Coleridge was from the Romantic period, an

era in which freedom, simplicity and the humble life were reflected

through poetry. Above all else though, Romantic poetry featured a

strong presence of nature, wild and untamed, the oppos...

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...ncerning sex became

more open in manner as the years went by. The protest against sexual

brutality in ‘Sexual Healing’ would certainly not have been acceptable

even two decades before its time, let alone 200 years. Further

exposure to lust and sex in the media led to poems such as ‘Adultery’

being written. This poem’s acceptance in contemporary society displays

a progression of international maturity in regards to sex, but at the

same time the loss of modesty. Ultimately, all poems have differing

representations of the same theme, which is shaped by the society of

its era.

William Wordsworth once said that ‘poetry is the spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings.’ Lust and sex are among the most powerful

feelings that human beings are capable of, and there is no doubt that

poets will continue express their passion, elation or anguish on this

subject.