“I Know How to Make the World Pay”: Depictions of Destructive Masculinity in Slash / Slash and Between Us, Not Half a Saint
I’m not an outwardly violent man. There’s no story about the time I blew up during a department meeting. There’s no college apartment wall that had to get patched to hide the product of my fist. And, mostly, I’m rewarded for this. Colleagues give me credit for my calm demeanor. Friends ask for a story of me at my worst when a slow morning or a fast night turns the conversation to stories of our youth. The tales of lost cars and behavioral probations bring laughter and raised eyebrows and calls for more details.
There’s a credit or quota that men are given for violence, and my lack of outward violence only builds my balance. When women lash out, they need to be tamed. When men lash out, they are taming the world. I know I’m allowed to break some part of this world because boys break things and men have to break the world to rebuild the world into something better. It’s a privilege I can’t lose any more than losing my shadow. Being black places many limits on what and who I’m allowed to break, but not even American racism can completely eliminate this privilege.
The consequences of violent and destructive masculinity were at the front of my mind when I read Slash / Slash by Amorak Huey and W. Todd Kaneko, and Between Us, Not Half a Saint by Rushi Vyas and Rajiv Mohabir. These collections, both collaborative poetry chapbooks, grow from very different sources and subject matter. Slash / Slash focuses on the iconic guitarist Slash and his position in Guns N’ Roses and the position of the rock musician in the American psyche — while Between Us, Not Half a Saint uses Hindu mantras and other found language to address the spread of fanatical nationalism in India, the United States, and around the globe.
However, both collections are built around the concept of what happens when men are given the power to shape the world. In “Boys Watch Slash,” Huey and Kaneko paint a compelling picture of how a musician can inspire and seduce. The poem concludes:
His name is Slash and his guitar
sounds like the devil’s name howled
backwards at midnight on MTV,
sounds like a lover’s voice
whispering our own reckless names.
Our chests grow slick with sweat.
His name is Slash and he is everything.
By the end of the poem, Slash is no longer a musician but a god that can bring lovers to his followers and imbue his followers with abandon and bravery. Unwavering loyalty becomes a small price for the spoils of manhood: power and sex and a name the world remembers. The purpose found by the speakers at the end of the poem stands in contrast to the opening of the poem that has the collective voice of the poem stating “We are fifteen and have no idea / what our bodies can do.” The poem shows how Slash gives a purpose and direction to these bodies; they can be great as long as they follow the example offered to them by the rockstar.
The allure of power is also present in Vyas and Mohabir’s “Portrait of Hindu Mob Rule as Coronavirus.” This is the entirety of the poem:
A fever first. A cough second. Delirium
catches the roof. Then the neighbor. A devotee
a burning masjid’s spire to plant a flag:
Victory to Ram! Monkey God in mid-flight.
This brief poem holds the density of a collapsing star. Here, the poets bring together a number of traditions and movements to speak to the current forces of religious intolerance and nationalism. A mob with the power of COVID-19 is frightening by itself. The power to destroy and spread destruction with the efficiency of a virus is a power that is normally beyond human control. However, the mob in the poem becomes something even more dangerous in the last line. The previous lines of the poem show why this torrent can drive former neighbors to become enemies, how Modi’s vision of nationalism in India has led to a number of crimes against Muslims in the country. The last line, though, depicts the mob of destroyers and arsonists as spiritual descendants of Hanuman, the monkey god who is one of Rama’s fiercest devotees in the Ramayana epic. Hanuman’s loyalty to Rama is absolute, and it pains the god to be away from Rama once he begins his devotion to him. In the Ramayana, Hanuman’s greatest act of devotion comes when he dares to venture to Lanka, the land ruled by the demon Ravana, Rama’s greatest rival and the kidnapper of Sita, Rama’s wife. During his journey to Lanka, Hanuman shows his unending loyalty to Rama by burning down Ravana’s city as he leaves the land after he has discovered the location of Sita and learns that she is still loyal to Rama. This connection of Hanuman to the present-day arsonists and zealots suggests that modern leaders have bent cultural traditions to fit their own ends and shows the ruin that can be left in the wake of unflinching devotion.
While both collections masterfully depict how a hungry audience can be entranced and manipulated, they also focus how manipulators learn to wield this power. In “Slash Buys a Gun,” Huey and Kaneko create a vision of the rockstar learning to handle the power he has in the world. Early in the poem, the speaker asks, “If a man can hold all / that power / in his hand, why wouldn’t he?” This question turns the philosophical debate of “might makes right vs. might for right” into an issue of epicureanism. If power can be touched, it should be touched. The consequences of the power are not a pressing anxiety for the speaker. Power moves the speaker into a new space where the speaker can announce at end of the poem “It is a stone in fist, / this heavy metal.” The stone is not defined as a tool of building or destruction, nor is it named as a building block for society or a siege missile crushing an enemy’s walls. The stone, and the world, are at the mercy of the hands wielding it.
In “Turiya Test,” Vyas and Mohabir also show readers a depiction of a dangerous man in their portrait of former President Trump as a representative of turiya, a state of supreme consciousness that few can attain. More common depictions of Trump show him as immature and impulsive, a playground villain who had to be coddled and sweet-talked out of burning the world. In this poem, though, the former president is something more dangerous. He “proudly claims he’s the same / as he was at five, as boy, / as bully, as neglected son. He // wants love unalterable, / fixed for all times.” While most of the world evolves and matures throughout life, Trump is a child prodigy, a mind and spirit formed to its final form from birth. This refusal to evolve becomes an act of will, and his will becomes one of the wills that dominate the world. The world has to change around him. Politics change in his presence. Media changes in his presence. He doesn’t change, and his promise to his devotees is that they also will not have to change. The poem asks, “Who would want // a static relationship?” — and answers this question by showing that many people wish for a myth of their society that they can create and hold in place. The myths say that Heracles strangled serpents as a newborn. The gospels say that Jesus as a child was a peer of the temple elders. The allure of the child god story remains because so many people hope that they could be someone’s child god, seen as perfect by being nothing more than what they have always been.
These two collections stand out for both their depictions of leaders and their fans, and of the possibilities and perils that come with collaboration. In both collaborations, the poems do not carry the individual poet’s name. This choice alone is a statement about collaboration and community success — and a clear contrast to the depictions of collaboration in the collections. In Slash / Slash, the middle section of the collection contains persona prose poems in the voice of Axl Rose, the lead singer of Guns N’ Roses. Many of the poems discuss his relationship with Slash and how their personae define the band and its legacy. This can be seen in the poem “Axl Accompanies Slash to a Lakers Game” when Axl says, “We are here to be seen. We were told it was a good idea by someone we pay to keep score. Points for this side, points for the other, all lights and noise and keep the beers coming. This is fun. This is fun. They keep reminding us.” This depiction of a calculated public appearance is akin to the joint press conferences given by world leaders to assure the world that alliances are intact and there is no need for alarm. However, alliances are rarely ones among equals, and that inequality can only be hidden for so long. The Roman triumvirates were never going to prevent the civil wars for control over the Roman Republic. Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt posing together at Yalta were not enough to prevent the Cold War. Bands have a standout member. Sports teams have leaders. Even King Arthur’s Round Table had a king sitting at it. In this system of masculinity, sharing success is not a possibility. There’s only room for a leader and follower. Huey and Kaneko’s poem ends with “We sit so close to the sweat. The desire. These men are trying so hard. Everyone thinks he’s going to win / of course that’s impossible.” The ache in the poem’s ending speaks to the closeness of the alternative and the hopelessness of the situation. There’s a clear alternative. Readers familiar with Guns N’ Roses will be reminded of the legendary music the two artists created together and be reminded of the long history of delayed albums and stalled reunions. Having this poem take place at a sporting event enhances its themes. There’s a choice to not play the game. There could be a choice to give in to the desire of companionship over the desire of fame and mechanics of fame. But not playing the game means that the courtside seats might go away. The fame might go away. And, in the face of that, sad and contrived partnerships become the reality. The old system of winners and losers guarantees at least one winner, even if that win is hollow and Pyrrhic.
Between Us, Not Half a Saint also depicts a world where collaboration falls short of its possibilities. Collaboration and community are often praised as tools to heal and unite communities. However, collaborators are not guaranteed to be benign. This can be seen in “Ku Kia‘I Mauna.” This poem, whose title translates to “Guardians of the Mountain” when moved from Hawaiian to English, shows how global political and capitalist movements work to scar the world. In Hawaii, The Guardians of the Mountain is a name taken up by activist groups who have protested the building of a Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) atop Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Hawaiian Islands. The poem asks, “If all mounts are sacred, why does / India fund TMT drilling” to demonstrate how the destruction of sacred and cultural sites is an international act. Multiple governments have contributed funding to the project that will permanently alter the site. However, the poem offers an alternative. Earlier it says, “When his ancestors burned, Bhagirath / broke his body to summon Ganga // down. Shiva’s dreads spared the world its force.” These lines refer to a tale from the Ramayana epic that speaks of how the king Bhagirath prays for thousands of years for the help of the goddess Ganga to purify the souls of his ancestors. In the tale, goddess finally agrees, but warns Bhagirath that her descent to earth will destroy the world. To avoid this calamity, Bhagirath prays to the god Shiva for help. Shiva agrees, and he contains the force of the water goddess Ganga in his hair. Shiva then rings out his hair to not only purify the souls Bhagirath’s ancestors, but to also bring Ganga to the world as the Ganges. In this story, gods and heroes work together honor ancestors and to create a sacred river. This is an example of how power can be used to enhance and protect the world. The poem shows that the powers of today’s world could make the same choice that Bhagirath, Ganga, and Shiva make. The same stories and legends used to create false notions of national and cultural purity also give examples of how power can be used to benefit all.
Someone with more knowledge of Indian politics and Hindu traditions would be a better reviewer than I. Someone who is a fan of Guns N’ Roses would be a better reviewer than I. I’m not an expert in the subject matter that serves as the inspiration for either Between Us, Not Half a Saint or Slash / Slash, but, if I’m an expert on anything, I am an expert on all the excuses and excesses this world offers to the men of the world. The poets in these collections chose to let their poems stand as collective poems. Both of these great collections show the carnage that can arise as a result of destructive masculinity, but they also show that there’s a choice to be made. As members of the world community, we choose how we treat the communities around us. As artists, we choose our subjects and themes. At their heart, these collections don’t ask us to imagine ourselves as Slash or Modi, but they ask us to imagine ourselves as ourselves. The question of “What would you do?” becomes the question of “What are you doing?” However, this question does not hang as an indictment or an accusation. This question points to possibility, and great art should leave its audience with questions of possibility, with questions of how the art moves beyond the source material and the worlds of the audience. The best art echoes, and these books echo in ways that challenge and inspire readers to reconsider their idols, leaders, and communities and how their relationships with them affect their world.
[Slash / Slash by Amorak Huey W. Todd Kaneko, published on June 10, 2021, 56 pages, $12.00. Between Us, Not Half a Saint by Rushi Vyas and Rajiv Mohabir, published May 15, 2021 by Gasher Press, $16.00]