Poetry is not any one thing. It doesn’t have to rhyme, and it doesn’t have to be formatted in neat lines. It can be about anything, and it can evoke any emotion. Some people can be snobby about it, but that’s not poetry’s fault; other people can scorn it altogether, but that’s not poetry’s fault, either. The purpose of poetry is to say something in a way that bypasses your defenses and hits you someplace vulnerable. If, when you finish reading a poem, you feel awash in a deep and pungent feeling you can almost but not quite explain, it has done its job.
In this way, poetry is similar to songwriting. There are, of course, differences–this is a songwriting blog, after all, not a songwriting and poetry blog–but there’s a long and storied tradition of songwriters taking inspiration from poets, or even being poets themselves (Patti Smith, David Berman, etc.) Jenny Gillespie Mason, the Berkeley-based singer-songwriter who performs as Sis, has found one such muse.
Anna Świrszczyńska, known as Anna Swir for short, was a Polish poet who was a member of the resistance against the Nazis during World War II. While she wrote about the trials and traumas that came from this experience, they did not define her work; she also wrote extensively about sensuality and the female body, not just in terms of sexuality but in terms of how it affects and enriches the self.
“Double Rapture,” Mason’s new song from her upcoming EP Gnani, is inspired by Swir’s two-line poem, “A Double Rapture”: “Because there is no me/And because I feel how much there is no me.” Using evocative lyrical imagery and some intriguing production, Mason captures the anxiety and the freedom that giving into the sensual world can bring.
Upon first listen, the production of “Double Rapture” might sound cold, even eerie. A Rhodes keyboard plays a two-note pulse, insistent and lightly ominous, as wispy synth atmospherics serve as counterpoint. Far from sheer hedonistic bliss, tension hangs in the air at every moment–but that just makes it more resonant when the song’s narrator accepts her existence in her body and embraces sensuality. There are quiet moments where “Double Rapture” catches the ear with something new–percussive skitters, a feint towards a major key–and those quiet moments are what moves the song forward.
“Head is in the clouds,” Mason sings at the start of the song, “but forgets its fury.” She’s describing a sense of alienation, losing oneself in petty concerns and neglecting the fire and vitality within. What’s most interesting about “Double Rapture” is that the fire never bursts into an inferno; there is no moment of catharsis (or climax, not to put too fine a point on things). It continues to pulse and throb, the only release coming from Mason’s wordless vocal melismas towards the end. This demonstrates a real understanding of what “sensuality” really means. Sensuality goes beyond sex, beyond pleasure, beyond pure id: it’s simply the satisfaction of being in a body, of being centered, of being here.
