Cultures of Addiction By Jason Lee

I unsealed the vial mystical,
I outpoured the liquid thing,
And while the smoke came wreathing out,
I stood unshuddering.
…

Then paused the smoke, the rainbow’s hues
Did a childish face express—
The rose in the cheek, the blue in the eye,
The yellow in the tress

The fair young child shook back her hair,
And round me her arms did wreathe,
Her lips were hard and cold as stone,
They sucked away my breath.

I cast her off as she clung to me,
With hate and shuddering;
I brake the vials, and foresware
The cursed, cursed thing…⁶⁷

The woman in Browning’s poem shatters the typical stereotypes of passivity and weakness. Instead, she curses and stands “unshuddering” and is actively pouring out and measuring—a wise, concerted witch/medusa. Lenore Kandel is another female writer who also provides a more negative portrayal of addiction. A longstanding member of the beat generation, the erotic nature of her work led to its suppression.⁶⁸ Her poem “Blues for Sister Sally,” written in 1967, can be read as politically subversive of the societal castigation of addicts:

II
Weep
For my sister she walks with open veins
Leaving her blood in the sewers of your cities
From east coast
To west coast
To nowhere