Policing, Politicizing, Poeticizing the Virgin/Whore Split: Contemporary American Women's Poetry about AIDS — Page 4:
16 In part three of the poem, Buddy and Newman visit Gay Pride. He is in a wheelchair:
A woman bounces up to us
"Where's your red ribbon?" she asks,
fishing out her supply.
Buddy says no thanks
and when she insists he pricks
his thumb with her safety pin.
A thin trickle of blood oozes down his skin.
"Here's my ribbon.
Is it red enough for you?" (11)
Here, Newman speaks to the presumption that everyone in the gay community must automatically support HIV/AIDS activism. She suggests that the realities of living with HIV are complicated; not everyone wants to be the poster-child for HIV/AIDS by wearing the now ubiquitous red ribbon. In fact, as Newman wrestles with her own subject position in relation to HIV/AIDS, she finds that she is more a part of the community than people like the red-ribbon distributing woman. She identifies with both the alienation and the ostracism Buddy endures. While she knows that she will always be at a distance from HIV/AIDS as someone who is seronegative, she also wants to clearly identify as part of that activist community and hence, at least by association, with the whore/bad girl side of the community.
17 Newman presents activism and the challenges of addressing HIV/AIDS in society in all of its complexities. "Oscar Night" presents a world in which celebrities seek solidarity with the HIV/AIDS activist community by wearing red ribbons on their clothing. Newman observes:
If I had a dollar
for every red ribbon
pinned to every jacket
and every gown
worn by every movie star
whose billion dollar smile
lit up my living room tonight
I'd be very rich
and Buddy would still be dead. (58)
Red ribbons continue as a symbol, but a symbol of what? By juxtaposing the "bouncing woman" early in the book with the "billion dollar smile" celebrities, Newman asks just what the red ribbons mean. For Newman, the HIV/AIDS community is not a glamorous fashion show, but a real space where people struggle and, in the earliest years of the pandemic, die. As part of the community, Newman seeks to criticize those outside of the community who want to step in for a moment. Think of it as some kind of activist tourism.
18 She shows us the daily events of life with Buddy, from medications to hospital rooms while also offering glimpses of life before HIV/AIDS when she, Buddy, and Guy lived life differently, unaffected by the constant presence of death. Buddy chose not to wear the red ribbon at Gay Pride, yet Newman's narrative places him firmly in the grips of HIV/AIDS, representative of life with and without HIV/AIDS.
19 The title poem, "Still Life With Buddy," demonstrates the realities of life without Buddy in the context of the book, which shows life with Buddy. In six short lines, Newman addresses the constant concern in HIV/AIDS poetry of juxtaposing the living and the dead:
mahogany table top
hand-made doily
fluted crystal vase
sprig of forget-me-nots
photo of Buddy dressed to kill
leaning against his ashes. (49)
Newman shows the material world of mahogany tables, doilies, crystal vases, and photographs against the natural, sprigs of flowers and ashes, and the spiritual, memories represented in the forget-me-nots. This tension, between abstract memories and palpable realities, marks much of the poetry of HIV/AIDS. While the flowers are poignant reminders of the beauty and fragility of life, the ashes, conversely, are an all too visible reminder of the fact that people die. Memories, ghosts, grief, and loss are not particular to HIV/AIDS, but HIV/AIDS represents tragedy, a life cut short, most often during what should have been the most vibrant years of life. For this, Newman writes the youthful photograph of Buddy, a tangible reminder of his absence, into the poem.
20 If Newman seeks to identify with those who are sick (and to some extent, one could argue, wants to be a part of the whore/bad girl world), if her counter-poetics lie in a desperate and angry attempt to critique the glaring homophobic and AIDS-phobic 1980s, Marie Howe's second book, What the Living Do (1998), represents almost the opposite. Written for her brother, John, the entire collection of poems is a book-length meditation akin to Newman's "Still Life with Buddy." But, more than simply chronicling the dead, Howe transgresses her virgin/good girl status by exploring sexuality.