Thumbscrews: poems

by Natalie Zina Walschots

The 2007 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry Winner! Thumbscrews is a poetic engagement with the aesthetics of sadomasochism and consensual pain. It employs the techniques of mannerist poetry to constrain language as ropes, cuffs, or shackles that might be used to constrain the body. Each poem can be taken as a miniature sadomasochistic encounter where language is tied up, beaten, and twisted into submission. This book abuses language; language begs for it. Thumbscrews engages with the sexual subculture of BDSM in content as well as in form. It explores the erotic ’scene’ and the prevalence of role-playing in the kinky bedroom, examines various settings as ‘pervertable’ locations, and chronicles a series of embarrassing trips to the emergency room. Poems are shaped from the hobbled language of email, visual representations of pain, and odes to various implements.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2007

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

scandal lake
shat sternum light
waders canker
rubicund blind

shallow worm
prick gully dock
trailer rancours
segmented lick

scrupled rock
break dinghy pitch
cooler waddles
daintily shore

- camp ground, pg. 8

* * *

dugout slung faulty
pickup clanks bourbon
belly green bottle grope
cower bunk sibilant

dogtooth blend frisky
taillights ooze careless
instep purified tar
trundle mud eloquent

turbine dusts throaty
gumboots squeal carbon
shoulder garrulous spark
tumble drug cumbersome

- ditch, pg. 13

* * *

drill barelling furtive
succours gum blight
gag strings fluoride
slaver verge

shook quarrelling sordid
captures root prize
prate blurts suction
liven bulge

gouge swallowing turgid
lingers bib sprain
stitch plucks marrow
x-ray splurge

- waiting room, pg. 17

* * *

wants complete
bee dance
jelly whisker
ply strangled old

mould mugger
griddle nails on
soupy lave sear
pluck wink catheter

cool cloture
strobe snark jaw
barbed yearling
bladed origami yoke

dew humour
blitz fried drill
puppy pupil
buttered cornea sore

wants complete
sweet grievance
frilly blister
cry mangled cold

- "There is frightened and there is forgetful", pg. 20

* * *

plants reseed
leaved parlance
fin whipper sniper
melting sting borrowed

dove bunker
whittle cortisone
core gel spun glare
rock pallid taster

spooled hover
muff slapped flaw
sweet shelling
tasted waiters sidling stark

rude platter
grits bribe trill
sought herbals
flounder spherical bare

plants reseed
lowering currants
lighter spurt melt her
blanched tin curtain falls

- there is frightened and there is forgetful, pg. 25

* * *

spiney acrostic
etch binary
split goatskin baited
bitch ivory
skinny ballistic
bit savoury
lacerate gleeful
stitch blithely

- flogger: mortal, pg. 30

* * *

juicy baby
rubber fist
red jawbreaker
gluts opera-mouthed
palate heaves
lip popper
sloppy baby
gurgle slick
gloam limpid

- ballgag, pg. 37

* * *

there's a carver in your cartridge
tears a cuttle in for clover
bears rebuttal for it suffrage
denser settle tit for salted
curse or nettle bit a mantra
cures a crater more lit contra
sources bait her skin flint cobra
loaded taint a grin rip

- corded, pg. 52

* * *

trick's in patter
gobble elegant

coloured wax holds
bucket sparkler

femme wile lick
belly lacquered

wick's other dart
dabble trickster

ear sucked amber
coddle duster

twin drop settee
ethanol lilies

your burning
meat hungers me

- sparkler, pg. 56

* * *

cleft unpeel
halter clutch
sour pickle
curtly bend
taut languish
slattern lift
laud curdle
shin girder
coddle nerve
bit pearly
nudge lustre
ply leather

- unarmed, pg. 66

* * *

moon sliver cuticles
sung inverted
spoons mimic bifocals
slimed mercury

palm cupping percussion
clasp deserted
plum biting concussion
blind perjury

soap polished galaxies
shone intrepid
pale yellow vertices
sore geometry

- armistice, pg. 70