Brautigan

I've never had it done so gently before
by. Richard Brautigan

The sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds.

Richard Brautigan has tons of longer prose and poetry in the collection that I don't think follows any traditional archetype. This poem is about the most use of form or line break that you'll find in the book. What I'm trying to say is that Brautigan is no E.E. Cummings. Most of his poems come in sequential block paragraph like stanzas. I never thought that a poem about cunnilingus could be so beautifully written. And that is also not and is the punch line meaning to the poem.

The poems works to take the act of cunnilingus in a poem as a serious and beautiful act. While all the time taking a tone with itself that is a serious poem that can be written about cunnilingus. This poem is very reminiscent to the straight man comedy of today. Brautigan says this poem in a straight face to say that he can say it in a straight face. The poem is to be beautiful to be beautiful and not to use cunnilingus as beauty. It tries in a way to bring legitimacy to poetry and freedom of speech in it's own content's symbolic nature.

I love the personal emotion and sensory imagination that this poem brings out. The use of 'I' brings the reader into the consciousness of the poem and at the same time the classical beauty of the poem. You would not even know it was about cunnilingus if not for the word "penis". Brautigan's choice to use classical analogy and simile of nature to this subject creates a mental bridge towards the legitimacy of beat poetry and poetry in general.

As a man, I immediately connected with this poem. I mostly connect with the power of emotion that words can have. What this poem does is show the emotional content and lyrical beauty in something that society deems vulgar. The poem functions in it's own form/topic to destroy this claim.