Of P.J. Harvey and Poetry

I was recently listening to the P.J. Harvey album, 'Uh Huh Her', an album that I like, but which doesn't blow me away by any means. I got to thinking about how I strongly preferred P.J. Harvey's earlier albums--'4 Track Demos', 'Dry', 'Rid of Me', and 'To Bring You My Love'. I continued acquiring her musical endeavors thereafter, but following 'To Bring You My Love', none of her projects moved me as powerfully as had the earlier material. Perhaps, to an extent, my own tastes changed, but I also think that P.J. Harvey's style changed.

On her earlier albums, it seemed to me that P.J. Harvey was interested in experimenting with her vocal prowess in some different and significant ways. She had a strong voice--she wasn't afraid to use it in non-conventional and confrontational styles--and she had the content to match. The subject matter and lyrics on her earlier albums struck me as very emotionally resonant and wrenching. One of the main emotions fueling the material seemed to be a raw, unapologetic anger that sometimes frothed into an almost out of control fury borderline hysteria or dangerous rage. I loved it.

I still love her voice, but I appreciated it more when it seemed like she was using it as more of a versatile instrument that didn't always sound pretty. Sometimes it sounded screechy or grating or harsh. I appreciate songs that sound ugly, uncomfortable, dissonant, or provocative in their own unique way. I think there is something very appealing about a singer's voice working outside the bounds of melodious conventions, especially if this befits the content of her songs.

Much of P.J. Harvey's song content seemed to speak about the objectification of women, but in her own uniquely creative way. There was a smoldering, unabashed sexuality about it. There was also the threat of violence behind the way she used her voice and the words she sang and shrieked and spit. She ordered men to sit on her face and talked about cutting off their legs. She talked about hooks and rape and being fed grapes and hacking off Sampson's hair. She spoke of exhibitionism and bondage and constraints and gender roles and burning it all, starting it all on fire. To me, her presentation of such content seemed aggressive, rebellious, confrontational, nonconformist, and subversively empowering.

For example, most of us have experienced the twisting of fairy tale conventions before, but not quite the way P.J. Harvey does it in her song 'Hardly Wait', in which she sings from a persona akin to Snow White contained in her glass coffin. Her voice starts out melodious and pretty, with a tone of decorum, but as the song progresses, this decorum warps. It creeps and mounts and oozes into a tone that sounds both tortured and monstrously menacing--like something in between a plea and a threat. On one hand, it sounds as if she is begging for human contact, an intimate touch, a passionate kiss. On another hand, it sounds like she is so wildly voracious that if she is set free from her glass constraints, she will surely consume anyone who intersects her path.

In my interpretation of her earlier creative work, P.J. Harvey exhibited a powerful female energy that manifested itself as an almost volcanically volatile, steamy mixture of unbridled sexuality and unpredictable fury. She was swept up in a high voltage current of visceral emotion and you didn't want to toy with her feelings or you just might end up shocked by an electric fence-or trussed up to a fancy bed with one of your legs hacked off and fire licking its way towards the saturated comforter as a jilted lover convulsed in the corner, alternating between singing opera, growling, and wailing like a banshee.

The stylistic transition of P.J. Harvey's later work seems to be a step away from such primal energy. Maybe she was tired of being tapped into that energy. Maybe she was drained. Maybe she felt that she had gone as far as she could in that particular direction and wanted to explore some other directions and experiment with some different styles or a more controlled style. It seems to me that her more recent albums offer up more of a hodge podge of different musical styles and perhaps that kind of musical eclecticism makes her feel like she is a more versatile artist.

In any case, her newer work does not resonate for me the way her older work used to. Of course, there are certain new songs that I appreciate more than others. Overall, though, her use of her voice and her song style and her song content/lyrics are not nearly as moving, provocative, or exciting to me as they used to be when she was enmeshed in sexual fury. I realize that this is my own personal, subjective response and that others may respond differently.

I am also thinking about this matter in relation to my own creative work-more specifically, my poetry. I have noticed that my older poems sometimes seem to garner more profuse and more positive feedback than some of my more recent poems, even though to my mind, my more recent poems are more sophisticated, more complex, more interesting, better pieces. I do think there's something good to be said for some of my older work, but it tends to strike me as overly obvious and unsophisticated. Perhaps since it is more obvious, it is just easier to respond to than my newer work, which isn't quite so clear cut or pinpointable.

I am not planning to revert back to my old style of writing; I am much more interested in the content I am generating now. Well, back to P.J. Harvey, I would imagine that she is also more interested in what she is doing now and feels that she is evolving into/progressing towards the artist she wants to be. Yet I was more interested in her earlier work.

This kind of musing raises some relevant points to ponder, regarding how once an artist releases her work into the world, she also relinquishes a certain degree of control over it. She cannot control how others interpret or respond to it.

I have a tendency to eliminate older pieces from my poetic repertoire if I am no longer satisfied with them, but just because those pieces no longer resonate for me, they still might resonate for others. Which is a more valid gauge of artistic quality? The artist's own personal assessment or positive audience response?