Here's the original call:
It's notoriously difficult to write about sex. As even the most inventive writers struggle to capture its utter fabulousness, this most visceral and energized experience keeps looping around to its own staid, repetitive language. There are varying levels of heat (hot, sizzling, torrid); a running X-rated soundtrack (moan, scream, grunt) and the inevitable parade of pounded, perspiring and manipulated body parts (breasts, butts, rods). If you've read one (jerk, cum, rigid), you've pretty much read them all (suck, damp, spurt). The poems range from the dryly clinical (vagina, testicles, areola) to the unintentionally comedic (dripping honey pot, throbbing member).
So how do we re-energize and reinvent the sex poem? We identify the 100 words that are the most blatant offenders, and we declare them off limits. That forces us to examine the act without the customary escape routes, those words that say "I don't know how to say this, so I'm saying this."
Here's a chance to muse upon the loss (or rediscovery) of your virginity, the best or worst you've ever had, illicit sex, purchased sex, sex toys, illegal sex, teenage sex, geezer sex, sex in the news, dangerous liaisons and fumbling first attempts. Use your imagination, but don't use THOSE WORDS--and be sure to look for unexpected entry points (oops) into your work. Utilize persona, shifting perspective, nonce forms, etc. No scratch-and-sniff, please.
For a list of the forbidden words, please email <100Wrds(at)gmail.com> (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail).
Submissions will be accepted at the same address. Please, no more than three poems per submission, and no previously published poems. No publisher has yet been wooed for this project, but the search is on.
Reprinted from Creative Writers Opportunities.
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