Cunt-Ups

by Dodie Bellamy

Poetry. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Dodie Bellamy's CUNT-UPS--first published in 2001 and recipient of the Firecracker Award for Innovative Poetry--was immediately a controversial and celebrated work. Using the "cut-up" technique of William S. Burroughs, CUNT-UPS is a work of sex magick, based on source texts from old lovers and Jeffery Dahmer transcriptions. The resulting spell queers everything around it. Enjoy!

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Womens

80 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2001

About the author

Dodie Bellamy is an American novelist, nonfiction author, journalist and editor. Her work is frequently associated with that of Dennis Cooper, Kathy Acker, and Eileen Myles. She is one of the originators in the New Narrative literary movement, which attempts to use the tools of experimental fiction and critical theory and apply them to narrative storytelling.

She ist married to Kevin Killian.

Reviews

[ipsit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cunt-Ups is an intense array of hyper-collaged sentences mostly about sex, and being fucked. Where most texts would take that experience and chloroform it to the essence of a dick joke or a doily, Bellamy’s configurations of cut-up sentences, inspired by the processes of William Burroughs and Kathy Acker, make the language act as if it is in the process of sex itself. Gender shifts and perspective shifts and grammar shifts midsentence carry a wild lyrical energy. Each line surprises. The text seems to want to make you fuck it too, using language as a drug that gets you spun up in the limbs in blenders. One could get done hard by pretty much any of the lines: “You used sleeping pills which were placed in my clit, which was so sensitive that I didn’t like it dismembered.” Or: “We keep fucking until we’re ash, leaving a smell as of horn, I must have come because it’s like the first time, I have to pass through this trying ordeal SO LARGE we would all be speaking and I awaken to your spiritual breasts, a perfect sphere of life everlasting, and after my so-called death we reach the O-C-E-A-N O-F C-O-M-E.” Bellamy reserves no object for the thrall to wrap around. She bangs necrophilia against childbirth, murder, and dirty fucktalk with a want for more. At the same time it does not feel cheap, the way so much affectless sex writing can: it feels 4D. Lines that in lesser hands could seem purple for how clear they are about their intent change in midline to something of a wholly different feel: constant mental motion. It’s nice to see the animalian nature of the act rendered so closely to the affect of it, with a voice that shifts the way mood does, and changes its shape by what it wants. A confession that changes its speech’s shape. Anyone writing or reading about sex in any way should read this book, and read it hard.

[Arno Vlierberghe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"My clit is hard. I've always welcomed missiles from the people I cared about. I do my best not to turn to smoke. I'm doing it in the Bay, and I knew it would be tricky, swinging into your forest like a sideways hammock. I spoke silently and filled your pussy and your asshole with thought. I needed to help direct you. I'm feeling a little worn out but I feel like a Rex fucking you. And so I was on a street, silly with you, feeling kind of ravenous. Children watched me over a wall, fingers sticky. Police came and I put it to you."

"Is the cut-up a male form? I've always considered it so - needing the violence of a pair of scissors in order to reach non-linearity. Is the pornographic a male realm? I think so. Women are usually stuck in the more wishy-washy 'erotic'. These cunt-ups are my version of Take Back The Night. I'm barging in on pornographic language and subverting it to my own ends." (Dodie Bellamy).

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving three stars to Dodie Bellamy is probably what will keep St Peter from letting me through the Pearly Gates, but I was a bit bored. I did appreciate the amorphously gendered surreal portrait of sex - never sure which lover is speaking or what their body is composed like - but each short piece was more or less indistinct from another. There are some great lines, though.

[Maud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild and fun and sexy but I had to get laid before I could finish the book

“Today’s a good day for my mouth. Unravel my rattles. We keep fucking until we’re ash, leaving a smell as of horn, I must have come”

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the wildest books I've read in a while. Bellamy's collection of porn-heavy cut-ups (in the style of WS Burroughs) are relentless and disorienting and funny and sometimes even poetic. The imploded source material is sometimes even seductive in the best, most perverted queer ways. It's hard to quote from the book without running into body parts and flowing fluids. But how about: "My tongue flicking in that little groove at the nails, the holes, the eye. Badly I was frightened, but I was able to let go, nipples hardening, one touch of your hand and I go violet with oil and tender sky."

[Joey Shapiro · Rating 1 out of 5]

“All this says small, or in between. You are very easy with words, but life is different. Are you uncircumcised? Are you nipples?”

Dodie I’m sure this was very fun to write (it’s all cut-ups from erotica and zombie novels and Jeffrey Dahmer’s journal) but respectfully this is literal horny gibberish, what am I supposed to do with this, brother? The reason this is fun to read when Kathy Acker does it is because Kathy’s writing makes sense on a sentence by sentence basis— this is truly just smutty words in no particular order. I like the hedgehog on the cover who has a great rack.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

so i read cunt-ups this weekend when visiting a good friend on her farm on the mendicino coast. i don't know if it was sublime northern cali cliffs, all the weed or what, but this book struck me as the full force it is. full force of the language of sex and disturbance - beyond the language Of sex - it is a language in sex - in all of its entanglements and enjabments holes and fillings. cunt-ups . very disturbing raw good stuff.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

ok so basically five stars even though maybe that’s crazyyyy…..I just was so charmed by so many silly sentences. I said to isobel this is sex writing that isn’t really scenes more just using sex language. I don’t know how she did this and that’s why I like it so much

[AudWad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hermaphroditic, erotic, poetic

[Ella Barrett-McGuinness · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get what it’s trying to do but it didn’t make the cut as an enjoyable read. Got bored after the initial shock factor.

[Ailsa]

I think I was expecting something along the lines of a poetic vagina monologues, and what I got was some brutally beautiful (but very cock focused) porn.

So I spent most of it strung out between disgust and wonder, and I suppose that's a thing.

I'm not giving this a rating because I was either not high enough, or too cock-averse/prudish to enjoy it fully, and that's my bad for not being the right target audience. The phrase 'cock foam' was just gross ew gross don't. And there were parts that went beyond ridiculous like 'my cock, i think it wants to go camping' which what.

But then there's parts like 'Ýou can't see me because I'm still a thing. I want to keep loving you until my heart needs a mouth, my cunt is always speaking thickest secrets' and goodness gracious me I had a lot of feelings reading this and they weren't all extreme disgust so, you know, well done?

[Olivia]

I enjoyed reading this horny awesome mess I definitely want to try this method of writing - the cutups - I think the text is elevated a lot by the way it was made which is kind of like form but separate. Thought the ambiguity of perspective/gender/body was really cool. Dodie always has such a way with weird metaphor she's a big inspiration for me in that way

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Bellamy does amazes me. In spite of the constant interruptions, syntactic juxtapositions and sensory digressions this "cut up" experiment makes, there is sense, rhythm, moments of narrative and lots of *functional* explicit erotica...

[Matty B · Rating 3 out of 5]

confessional and diary style writing cut up into an enthralling word collage to designed highlight the repetition and verbage and sex of everyday life.

[ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’ve always welcomed missiles from/ the people I cared about.”
so Bellamy is a writer that i think my more obscene poetry is in conversation with, and i really like the approach with collaging text. it culminates abruptly and feels a little chronologically dysfunctional, but ultimately, thats the point; this text is an emulative representation of sexual sensation. lost in the repugnance of bodily fluids and forms. who is who? who is to say, honestly. really good stuff—i’m taking notes

[Erik Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Without its shell, but it's tubular, like most and I was raised there and attended and we fall asleep together. I'll wake up when you pinch my nipple, I'll look back at you when you tell me to rub cum juice on my living. Will you accept my pussy for your subject states? I was raised--think of it as yours."

[Robert Carey]

Closest textual approximation I've ever read of really good sex.

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so loud and cacophonous and violent but also soft. Question now is what to do with my neeeeed???

[Lulu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very conceptual … and I don’t mean that as a complement

[Jessica Buie · Rating 3 out of 5]

read one chapter every few days as opposed to all at once

[jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

ideal coffee table book imo

[Mic Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

A TEXTUAL SEXUAL PARTY FEAST

[maria]

you know when you see a book name so great you get upset you didn't come up with it first

[Jesica · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF! When I read that she was influenced by Burroughs and his cut up style I was like oh fuck no! Ugh

[Quinn Rennerfeldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is filthy, hot, and utterly original.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well damnit, this was such a good surprise. my first Bellamy book caught me off guard and kept me intrigued with her style, lyrical choices, and one hell of a trump card taken from Burroughs & Acker. You cannot look past the sexual content, but you should look at the gender switching, the taking of power, the complete, well mind fuck, in the best sense. If you are interested in cut ups, or in experiments, read it.

And now a quote from Ipsith on Goodreads, who sums it up better than I can this AM after just inhaling it:

"Cunt-Ups is an intense array of hyper-collaged sentences mostly about sex, and being fucked. Where most texts would take that experience and chloroform it to the essence of a dick joke or a doily, Bellamy’s configurations of cut-up sentences, inspired by the processes of William Burroughs and Kathy Acker, make the language act as if it is in the process of sex itself. Gender shifts and perspective shifts and grammar shifts midsentence carry a wild lyrical energy. Each line surprises."

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surrealism intersecting with pornography, mixed together with some violent Giallo-esque imagery, this book is creepy at the same time as it is erotic and alien. The swirling repetitions of language, the multitudes of strange coincidences in the juxtopositions, all of these things combine for a challenging and maddening read.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

possibly the most intense book i've ever read...and not for the squeamish or prudish! i need to read it about 60 more times to get a grasp on it, but it's wonderful. bellamy has a way of making the basest human instincts attractive and often beautiful.

[Carmen Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you would like to see Kathy Acker and William S. Burroughs chopped and slammed together in a psycho-sexual clusterfuck, read this book. Funny, subversive, and tender by turns.

[Frankie Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal Pornography! Alien, erotic and creepy in places.
I loved it!