Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Sessions" by Wanda Coleman is an intricate exploration of the inner turmoil and complexities of the speaker's life, juxtaposed against her sessions with a doctor, presumably a therapist. Through a series of contrasting narratives—what is shared with the doctor versus the speaker's lived realities—Coleman delves into themes of desire, identity, and the struggle for understanding and acceptance in a world that often feels alienating.

The poem navigates the space between fantasy and reality, the unspoken and the enacted, revealing the depth of the speaker's internal conflict and desires. The opening lines immediately set a tone of concealment and fear: the speaker admits to having fantasies that she dares not voice, fearing misunderstanding or even violence. This establishes a dynamic of mistrust and apprehension that characterizes her interactions with the doctor and, by extension, with the broader world.

Each "reality" segment peels back layers of the speaker's experience, revealing moments of connection, betrayal, and longing that remain hidden from the doctor's view. The encounters described—sliding into a car with a singer, the theft of a ring, confronting a lover about leaving her partner—paint a vivid picture of a life marked by moments of intensity and transgression. These narratives are laden with complexity, highlighting the speaker's search for love, validation, and escape from the constraints of her circumstances.

The dialogue with the doctor serves as a foil to these realities, showcasing the limits of clinical interpretation and the failure to grasp the speaker's lived experience fully. Questions about sexual fantasies, parental love, and gendered faces on paper seem trivial or reductive in light of the speaker's rich and tumultuous inner world. This disjunction underscores the poem's critique of the clinical gaze as insufficient for understanding the nuanced realities of human emotion and desire.

The revelation of the doctor's own vulnerabilities—"after his nervous breakdown and my divorce"—blurs the lines between patient and practitioner, suggesting that the struggles the speaker faces are not hers alone but part of the human condition. This moment of reversal, where roles are inverted and the doctor becomes a participant in the speaker's "reality," reinforces the poem's exploration of the fluidity of identity and the shared vulnerabilities that lie beneath our social facades.

Ultimately, "Sessions" is a meditation on the search for healing and self-knowledge in a world that often fails to recognize or accommodate the complexities of individual experience. Coleman's closing lines, in which the speaker finds solace not in therapy but in securing a "decent job," suggest a turn toward self-reliance and the pursuit of stability as a form of recovery. Yet, the poem leaves open the question of whether such external markers of success can truly address the deeper needs and desires that propel the speaker's journey.

Through "Sessions," Coleman invites readers to reflect on the nature of healing, the power dynamics inherent in therapy, and the ways in which our deepest selves resist categorization and control. The poem is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of misunderstanding and marginalization, celebrating the capacity to find new paths forward even in the most challenging circumstances.

POEM TEXT: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wicked_Enchantment/hKM_EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

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