Tales from Storyville 3: The Poet and the Prostitute (Bellocq's Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey)

Photo of Natasha Trethewey by Nancy Crampton 

and photo of a Storyville prostitute by E. J. Bellocq

I.

According to Susan Sontag, only men find something romantic about prostitution; women look at things - including photographs of naked women taken in Storyville - differently don'tcha know. Nevertheless, there's something distinctly romantic about Natasha Trethewey's second collection of verse, Bellocq's Ophelia (2002). 

The work, divided into three main sections, consists of a series of poems in the form of an epistolary novella meditating on an imaginary and composite figure (Ophelia) supposedly captured by Bellocq's camera. It occasionally makes for uncomfortable reading, detailing as it does the life of a mixed-race prostitute in the early 1900s who had nothing to fall back on (as Toni Morrison would say).

But what's really interesting, philosophically, is that whilst Bellocq directs his gaze towards female flesh, Trethewey attempts to offer us a glimpse into Ophelia's soul; transforming her from an anonymous sex object into a unique subject whom we might know, value, and grow to love.

Most people would probably find nothing wrong with that; would think it a beautiful thing to do. But Foucault calls this process subjectivation and regards it as the exercise of power favoured by liberal humanism; i.e., the way in which the (amoral and irrational) forces and desires of the body are codified, coordinated, and given personal expression.

(I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it is something worth thinking about ...) 

II.

If asked to choose, I suppose my favourite part of the work is found in section two and entitled 'Letters from Storyville'; the part in which Ophelia recounts her initial experiences as a prostitute, including her name change to Violet, something which fans of the film Pretty Baby (1978) will knowingly smile at.

That said, I'm also very fond of this sonnet from section three of the book, with which I'd like to close this post:

'Storyville Diary,' Photography 1911

I pose nude for this photograph, awkward,

one arm folded behind my back, the other

limp at my side. Seated, I raise my chin,

my back so straight I imagine the bones

separating in my spine, my neck lengthening

like evening shadow. When I see this plate

I try to recall what I was thinking -

how not to be exposed, though naked, how

to wear skin like a garment, seamless.

Bellocq thinks I'm right for the camera, keeps

coming to my room. These plates are fragile,

he says, showing me how easy it is

to shatter this image of myself, how

a quick scratch carves a scar across my chest.

See: Natasha Trethewey, Bellocq's Ophelia, (Graywolf Press, 2002). 

Readers interested in part one of this post - a brief history of Storyville - should click here. 

Readers interested in part two of this post - on Bellocq's photographs - should click here.