Anonymous Intimacy and Horrible Truths Beckon in Sara Peters’ I Become a Delight to My Enemies
In the opening of Alice Notley’s 1996 feminist epic, The Descent of Alette, the speaker tells us, in ominous warning:
“I gradually became aware — ” “though it seemed
as that happened” “that I’d always” “known it too — ” “that there was”
“a tyrant” “a man in charge of” “the fact” “that we were”
“below the ground” “endlessly riding” “our trains, never surfacing”
“A man who” “would make you pay” “so much” “to leave the subway”
“that you don’t” “ever ask” “how much it is” “It is, in effect,”
“all of you, & more”
Fast forward in time and the unnamed, corrupt, and controlling man in power that haunts the pages of Notley’s powerful epic has been reincarnated as the Chancellor in Sara Peters’ experimental novella I Become a Delight to My Enemies. Set in a Town that is never identified neither geographically nor by name, the book is a series of accounts that are either told by or about women living in the Town — figures like the oracle, the doctor, and the teacher — and of the violence they endure. This time, however, it is not simply “the man in charge” who is responsible for the perpetuation of abuse and dehumanization of the female protagonists, as Peters draws our attention to the systems of complacency that not only allow such behaviour but also perpetuate it.
Lacking page numbers and structured in a way that recalls newspaper clippings and personal notes that have been arranged into a folder, I Become a Delight to My Enemies has an atmosphere of privacy and intimacy to it, like a testimony. Yet the anonymity that hangs over some of the individuals, paired with the format of the work, points to the awful truth that women are still not allowed to speak freely and must seek protection in anonymity when they do, a sign that we collectively continue to ignore and dismiss testimonies of survivors. “The Corner Store Clerk Voices His Opinion” is one of a few “chapters” told from the perspective of men, like short, misogynistic notes that tell the reader: “I am no fool, I don’t/ offer protection, I tell them, safety starts with you.”
Even more chilling, however, is the toxic relationships between women that Peters draws attention to, showing us the ways in which female kinship can “spoil,” particularly when the patriarchal mindset and misogyny become culturally ingrained. “Mother’s Day” is perhaps the most notable, and chilling, example of this. The final lines a sharp shift from the kind of love and devotion culture has conditioned us to expect and express towards mothers:
Thank you
Mother
For always standing by my side
For always having my best interests at heart
For always putting my needs
First
For always putting me
First
For always
Holding
My body in front of hers
Like a shield
The ending of I Become a Delight to My Enemies offers no consolation or solution to its reader, only one last emphasis on the results of the dehumanization the unnamed first-person speaker, who weaves through the book and is present in each of the women who speaks in the collection. In repeating “I step into the water dragging something behind me;/ I have no idea what./ I have no idea what I’m dragging behind me,” Peters lets the heavy curtain of guilt and shaming fall with the last sentence without ever rising even an inch over the course of the book. Through these lines, she also adds a kind of period to the “hidden” narrative that is also woven through I Become a Delight to My Enemies, one written in the margins, a voice that simultaneously builds on the words of the other women, but is also relegated to a ghost-like existence that reminded me so much of the nymph Echo.
I Become a Delight to My Enemies is not the most saturated work of its kind in the genre. There is a lightness to Peters’ approach to allegory, in the ambiguity and emptiness created by the deliberate refusal to conform to the rules of either fiction or poetry. Peters’ decision to approach the heavy topic allegorically may not be for everyone; indeed, it lacks the sort of heavier poetic discourse found in collections like Natalie Eilbert’s Indictus or Jos Charles’ feeld, two collections that stab the heart of the issue directly in a way that is more raw, more subconscious. Yet the strength of I Become a Delight to My Enemies is that it can serve as an entry point into the spectrum of approaches to and discourses about sexual assault in contemporary feminist poetry. It is a work that is between genres, one that left me with breathing room and an escape route at times when the narrative became overwhelming. Peters cares for her readers, and that is not something that should be taken for granted.
