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i want more ‘men’
with flowers falling from their skin. more water in their eyes. more tremble in their bodies. more women in their hearts than on their hands. more softness in their height. more honesty in their voice. more wonder. more humility in their feet. –less, nayyirah waheed “Less” by Nayyirah Waheed questions masculinity. Waheed addresses the absence of specific traits in men that she desires. The first two lines, “i want more men with flowers falling from their skin,” set the tone for the rest of the poem– gentleness and “femininity.” Flowers are symbols of life; life comes (traditionally) from love. Love comes from understanding. Understanding comes from vulnerability. Men are vulnerable; but they do not show it. Vulnerability and affection are assets necessary for genuineness and honesty and authenticity to thrive, traits that enable love in its truest form. Waheed wants more men with this kind of vulnerability— for now she labels them ‘men,’ for it is not the common perception of a man. Men are expected to be manly men, tough and obstinate and unfeeling of emotion. “Flowers” possibly represent words; humans use words to show love and authenticity. Or perhaps alternatively, the flowers falling from their skin represent the shedding of tears, the shedding of themselves, the shedding of themselves onto others. Addressing weaknesses or talking about problems does not place a burden on others. Fears and worries and problems need to be spoken about to release tension in oneself. People should be kind, gentle, and tender, and listen. The flowers fall from their skin in display of freely expressing emotion without hesitance or consideration. Flowers are traditionally seen as feminine; Waheed is negotiating the absence of femininity in men with the contemporary affectation of masculinity that men adopt. Stereotypically feminine traits, such as crying (“more water in their eyes”), earnestness (“more tremble in their bodies”), gentleness (“more softness in their height”), honesty, and self-effacement and humbleness (“more humility in their feet”), are beneficial to keeping oneself in reality, and to enlightenment and curiosity. The title of this poem—“less”— is curious; Waheed uses parallelism throughout the poem to denote what she desires more of in men. She wants to see more tremble, more softness, more honesty, more wonder, etc., yet does not signify what she wants less of. This, I believe, leaves the meaning of the poem open-ended for the reader. Waheed implies that she desires less hypermasculine traits in men; she states what ‘feminine’ traits she does desire. Therefore, she is leaving it up to the reader to decide which sociological behaviors in men are typically masculine (hypermasculine). She is allowing the reader to make these connections for themselves, to question the presence of social constructs and which presences are social constructs. Alternatively, by the title “less,” Waheed is being ironic: after stating everything that she wants more of, she is ironically insinuating that the men are “less” than they were before. This irony is a way of saying that being less of the stereotypical 21st century man does not make them any less of a person. In fact, it very well might make them more.
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AuthorJosie Kremer Archives
January 2017
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