The back cover promo of this bk calls it the "erotic works of Alan Davies" & goes on to say "Like Apollinaire's Prince of Debauchery or the works of Sade, Davies uses sex like a scalpel to lay bare our lives and thoughts." I've read the Apollinaire work mentioned (under the translation name of "Debauched Hospodar") & I'd call it fairly straight up porn. It's written as a conventional narrative of sexual adventures - probably written for fun & profit. Interesting b/c Apollinaire wrote it but necessarily that special. "Rave" is far from straight up porn. Perhaps the main thing it has in common w/ "Prince of Debauchery" is that it's written by an experimental poet. But unlike w/ Apollinaire, it stays experimental poetry. As for de Sade? I find that one more than a little hard to swallow (or choke on). de Sade wrote intense fantasies, lists of ways to destroy other people for unrestrained sexual release. The writing is often little more than a psychopathic itinerary. It's fascinating in its unrestraint, there's certainly poltical commentary & philosophy there. de Sade has no holds barred. Again, I find the comparison to Davies more than a little strained. Both de Sade & Apollinaire aim to excite the sexual imagination into frenzy. Alan's work is much more oblique, much more restrained.

I find much of Alan's writing to be imbued w/ sex. Penises, cunnilingus, nudity, lust all pop in for a guest appearance w/ regularity. That's the case here too but not necessarily any more so than anywhere else. Porn is usually flat-out explicit sexual reference meant to excite to masturbation. On the back cover of this is written: "Vitals is a short novel, porn reduced to its essentials." Here's the 1st paragraph of "Vitals":

mJ wrote wM remembering. Jeff spoke wM fears. wM read Jeff thought. wM spoke wM remembering. Jeff forgot. mJ spoke wM fears. Margie forgot. mS, mF, wE, wJ watched forget wM perception. mS touched mS thought. wM listened mS touch mS thought.

Now that's certainly an interesting paragraph but "porn reduced to its essentials"? That, in itself, is an amazing claim. I wonder who wd agree w/ it? In the early '80s when I wd go to NYC I wd sometimes stay at the loft of the publisher of this bk. It was a great place to stay (for NYC) b/c it had that rare thing that almost no-one I know in NYC has: SPACE. When I'd stay there I'd be w/ whoever my girlfriend was at the time. One time it was a girl w/ whom I had a particularly active sex life. We had sex there w/ our usual loudness while someone who was using the adjoining rm as a painting studio was working. Perhaps it was rude of us to be so loud. After we were finished we went to the kitchen. There were 2 raw eggs broken neatly on the floor. When we asked our host about that later he explained that that was something that the painter wd do. It seemed to be a response to our sex. Is this the type of person who wd find the above sample writing "porn reduced to its essentials"?

In porn, it wd be quite rare to find "thought" or "perception" or even "fears". Porn is all about unbridled lust & its gratification. In erotica, more subtle feelings are referenced, "remembering" might occur. The bk's blurb calls "Split Thighs" a "long and legendary poem published in 1975 in a limited xerox edition that circulated underground" & calls it an "erotic work". Alan wd've been very young when he wrote it. Here's the 1st stanza (minus correct positioning not possible in GoodReads):

city of affection
shape moribund desire
why not
petulant
cunt over throne

To me, that's not erotica. But it's very, very interesting for it to be marketed as erotica. In Alan's bk "LIFE" wch I've reviewed prior to this one, he writes:

Tongue in Her Cheek

What can I do here
plagued by my advancing years
and the poetry of dead men
who will always write better than me?
I'll have another drink
under the disheveled sky
and return to the games
that we have learned to play.

Alan, too, will be a dead man someday whose poetry someone else will read despairing that they can never be so good. Alan is a writer who has, w/ "RAVE", extended the notion of what someone will call erotica. The very strangeness of this claim is what makes it so remarkable. ( )