Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Lawless Pantoum" by Denise Duhamel employs the pantoum form—a poetic structure involving repeating lines across stanzas—to explore and satirize absurd legal stipulations regarding sexuality, highlighting how these laws control and objectify the body in bizarre and often contradictory ways. The poem addresses various hypothetical and surreal laws that govern sexual behavior, using hyperbole to critique societal norms around gender and sexuality.

Each stanza in the poem interweaves with the next through repeated lines, which shift in meaning as their context changes. This structure mirrors the often convoluted and illogical nature of the laws Duhamel references, emphasizing the confusion and arbitrariness inherent in legislating morality and private behavior.

The poem opens with a shocking and absurd declaration that "Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, as long as the animals are female." This line sets the tone for the series of bizarre legal stipulations that follow, each exposing different aspects of gender bias, sexual hypocrisy, and the objectification inherent in such laws. The distinction between permissible actions with female animals versus the taboo and severe punishment associated with male animals satirizes the arbitrariness of legal and moral codes concerning sexual acts.

The subsequent stanzas introduce more outlandish scenarios, such as tropical fish store saleswomen being allowed to go topless and the requirement for a betrayed wife to use her bare hands if she wishes to kill her husband legally. These examples exaggerate the ways in which laws can be both specific and absurdly detailed, critiquing how the legal system intrudes into the personal and intimate realms of life.

One of the more striking images is the gynecologist who must "only look at a woman’s genitals in a mirror," juxtaposing medical professionalism with voyeuristic prohibition and hinting at the discomfort and distance society mandates towards female sexuality. This is compounded by the eerie directive that the genitals of a corpse must be covered with a brick, further reflecting societal discomfort with the human body and its functions, even in death.

The poem culminates in a circular return to its beginning, with the repeated lines altering their impact and meaning through their new context. This return reflects the cyclical and unending nature of legal and moral debates surrounding sexuality, highlighting the redundancy and often backwardness of such discussions.

Through "Lawless Pantoum," Duhamel effectively uses satire to challenge the reader to consider the absurdity of how laws shape and often distort human sexual behavior and gender interactions. The poem is both a critique of the legal system's attempt to regulate morality and a provocative exploration of the arbitrary ways that societies try to control and define sexuality.

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