bio

Christine Hamm lives in NYC. She is a social worker and has a MFA in Creative Writing. Her poetry has been published by Loop, Monday Night, Watchword Press, Poetry Midwest, Shampoo, Stirring, Taint, Whalelane, and The Absinthe Literary Review, among others. She was the literary editor of Wide Angle, a monthly journal. When not writing poetry, she's trying to make babies and/or feed babies to her cats.

primary external link:
chamm @ blogspot

other favorite links:

Sex Education

If there were a movie made
of my teenage sexual education
it would be like this:

The style is a homage
to Bergman, Fellini and
the X-files.

In my movie, long pauses are punctuated
by random weeping.

Sometimes music plays
in the background and it is elevator
music based on Jazz.

My movie is rife with irony and sarcasm.
People say Yeah or Right
when they mean You're crazy as a loon.

There is poor acting in my movie.
Actors forget their lines
and have to be prompted.

My movie is intergenerational
and interracial and sometimes the elderly
pretend to be teenagers and sometimes
the teenagers feel elderly.

Most of my movie is filmed at night,
in claustrophobic middle class
bedrooms with bad lighting.
There are posters of Kiss and Ricky Martin
on the walls.

A few scenes take place at the beach
and are so over-exposed that it is difficult
to make out figures. The day at the beach
fades twice to a white screen.
During the beach scene, voices mumble without
much feeling every two to three minutes.

Much of the movie is in black and white,
and filled with staring, still nudes.
Some nudes are fat and others, thin.
There are no normal sized people in my movie.

Sometimes blood spurts
on a wall and trickles down.

Once the camera focuses on toes
on a sheet as they curl slowly.

Once, just once, a couple sits on a mattress
in a bare room. Their limbs wrap around one another
until all that is visible is pale elbows and knees
and long black hair. The sex of the couple is
indeterminate.

Sometimes the camera focuses on the moon
and sighs are just audible.

At times the camera work is hand-held,
jumpy and up-close, as books, lamps, bottles
and clothing fly across a room. There is screaming
and crying and the sound of fabric tearing.
The camera pulls back and a girl is alone
in a bedroom. She rushes the camera.
The screen goes blank.

This happens repeatedly in my movie.