POLITICAL ANGST –a 2015 poem for d’verse

Published February 10, 2017 by Nan Mykel

POLITICAL ANGST*

I don’t like to be angry,

I don’t like to be sad.

But those damn congressmen

are making me mad.

What pricks with little dicks

can’t stand the word vagina?

(From my poem in Time Wrinkles* after a Congressman objected to the use of the word “vagina” in the Michigan House of Representatives June 14, 2012.)

New Challenge: To Reject Trump the Perverse, Poets Wage a Battle in Verse – An Excerpt

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

(This may be an alternate truth) from Nicholas Kristof 9-2- 2017: NY Times Op-Ed page

trump-poetry-illegal Some people stand up to President Trump in the courts, others in street protests. And the poets among us, they battle President Trump with an arsenal of verse….

Susan McLean, a poet and English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University:

Trump seethes at what the writers say.
He’ll pull the plug on the N.E.A.
The joke’s on him. Art doesn’t pay.
We write our satires anyway.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/opinion/

HE’s PRESIDENT OF WHAT!?

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

trumo-allegianc

BETRAYAL: Dialog with Serena

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Serena’s comment: Nan, that’s a useful insight. I’m nervous, though, about the descriptor “more”. I would say the dynamics are simply different. For example a child abused by a teacher who is their hero/ine. Or by a priest who is the conduit of their daily prayers to their Creator, who they love? Having said that I agree it’s about Trust. Not a word I understand, I’m afraid.

Photo courtesy of Faisal Jawaid info@www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gdj.gdj.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/kits-photography-3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://graphicdesignjunction.com/2013/07/kids-photography/&h=750&w=500&tbnid=0sYvrGsLE8-ErM&tbnh=275&tbnw=183&usg=__TxaMRYu_LpNDk4KTslifxXTYJlA=&docid=YFx0JFHX82-3wM

Nan’s Reply: Yes, I agree that as stated by Shengold is a bit confusing. I just now clarified in my post that these words were his own. I think he’s narrowing himself to the issue of broken trust. I don’t think I’m saying it very well. Finkelhor (1986) outlined four different damaging effects of Incest (powerlessness, damaged goods, betrayal and damage to the victim’s sexuality.) Under the rubric of “incest” he included both blood and non-blood incest (to include such caregivers as babysitters, coaches, teachers, clergymen, etc.).

When someone says “I don’t get mad, I get even,” it is likely that he or she has experienced betrayal. It is one of Finkelhor’s four factors in child sexual abuse, and carries with it anger, depression, clinging, impaired judgment of others, and isolation. When the child’s personhood is disregarded and they are related to only as a sex object, there is also bitterness. “At the moment of abuse, with its profound betrayal of relational and generational boundaries, illusion is forever smashed.” (Frawley-O’Dea 1997, 95).

THE ABOVE IS THE KIND OF EXPLORATION AND EXCHANGE that I welcome. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or experience.

BETRAYAL

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

According to Shengold, “sexual abuse by a parent is more traumatic than by other individuals, due to the level of betrayal involved. In later relationships it is not unusual for survivors to evidence their ambivalence by vacillating between rage and passivity. Extreme dependence and an inablity to assess the trustworthiness of others are also common. In the absence of healing, prognosis for a good marriage is guarded, due to what Shengold calls a “pseudorelatedness that disguises a deeply seated misrust of others based on experienced reality,” (Shengold, 1989, 315).

I remember the story my father told me about a man who was urging his child to jump in the water, assuring the child that she or he would be caught. Finally, in a leap of faith, the child jumped in and the father stepped aside and did not catch the child. My father said, “The lesson is, don’t ever trust anyone.” (p 176)

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi

DAMAGED GOODS

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Herman…observes that “the profound sense of inner badness becomes the core around which the abused child’s identity is formed.” (1992, 105). Blume refers to the child’s sense of being “soiled and spoiled.” (1990, 244).

“The notion that a truly evil ‘other’ is embedded deep within the victimized daughter is a reflection of the sexual nature of her violation. The penetration of the body is experienced as the penetration of her true self, creating within her psychic being a place of evil and shame that is a source of stigma and self-hatred.” –Janet Liebman Jacobs, 1944).

My father stressing that “boys want only one thing” undoubtedly fed into my self-devaluation. I assume now that at that moment he was excluding himself, but I was not sufficiently quick or brazen to call him on it. (p. 172)

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:

If You Wear Dentures…

Published February 8, 2017 by Nan Mykel

You don’t have to tell me, but as my favorite school teacher used to say, “a word to the wise is sufficient.” Since I’ve let everything else in my life hang out, I’ll let this secret surface too, all for the public good.

I’d been envying those with real, super white teeth and when I saw Polident’s new whitening tablets I thought ‘d give them a try. Once. Once, because after one use the pink in my dentures turned lavender! Did I want to try more to make them more white? No I did not! I then got them re-lined and that dentist said he was not surprised at my experience–never put coloring agents on dentures. Just thought you’d like to know. horrified-emoticon