“Shall I Rim You?”: Erotic Poetry Too Hot For Newspapers!

Dirty poems have a long and storied history dating all the way back to that guy from Nantucket, but there's one problem with this particular genre of literature: Most of it isn't very good. It's not easy to write about sex and actually make it sexy, even though every great writer from Shakespeare to Avril Lavigne has tried. Nevertheless, a new book called "The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present" takes a look at this lost art form and while we haven't actually read it ourselves yet, this writeup in the New York Times Book Review already has us hot and bothered. In addition to surveying the book contents, including John Updikes's "Fellatio" ("perhaps the worst poem ever written on any subject"), it helpfully advises that when it comes to lyrical interpretation of sexual congress, nastier is definitely better. By example, he awards the crown to W.H. Auden's "The Platonic Blow," which reads a little like filthy eight grade fantasy but certainly wins points for its pornographic DVD cover-worthy cadences. Check out both poems below.

. . .

How beautiful to think
that each of these clean secretaries
at night, to please her lover, takes
a fountain into her mouth
and lets her insides, drenched with seed,
flower into her landscapes:
meadows sprinkled with baby's breath,
hoarse twiggy woods, birds dipping, a multitude
of skies containing clouds, plowed earth stinking
of its upturned humus, and small farms each
with a silver silo.

· "Fellatio - a poem" by John Updike (igreens.org.uk)

. . .

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

· "How Dirty Is That Auden Poem That Was Too Dirty for the 'Times Book Review'?" (nymag.com, via Gawker)
· The Best American Erotic Poems (review @ nytimes.com)
· Thumbnail via adultxporn.com via askjolene.com)

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