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Incontestable Ranking of the Breasts of Naked Stanford Sculptures 
Surya Hendry, Stanford ’23 
 
The worst breasts on campus were sculpted by  
Rodin. They bloom from the armpit. If you lance 
that bronze with a needle, pus will leak out all  
viscous. Rodin’s women cross their arms over their 
 
eyes, as if embarrassed by their bubonic pustules.  
Next I’d rank the breasts around back of the  
mausoleum. They are attached to sphinxes, which  
used to stand in front of the maus, until Jane Stanford  
 
called them “displeasing” and had them moved to the  
rear. Now androgynous sphinxes flank the front door.  
The breasted sphinxes became part of a vast underbelly  
of institutional secrets. Institutional secrets have often  
 
revolved around breasts, and these breasts themselves 
are vast and institutional: tough rock, bulbous and distinct.  
In second place is the Universal Woman. She lives in the  
Stem Cell Research Building. She is eight feet tall. Her  
 
breasts melt into cavities. Her bronze limbs appear to  
waste away. The universal woman is on the brink of  
disappearance. The universal woman is not aging well.  
The universal woman eats herself alive, breast by rotting breast.  
 
The very best, most realistic breasts on campus were  
funded by Chevron, Chevron being the main corporate  
donor to the Papua New Guinea sculpture garden. They  
are attached to women who are often being pulled upward:  
 
by men, by eagles, by higher powers. And yet the soft  
wooden breasts sink resolutely down. They say: this body  
shall not rise heavenwards. It is of the earth. On earth she stays.  
 
Meet the piece: This poem, in a tongue-in-cheek way, examines the way male sculptors have 
treated women's bodies in the statues across Stanford's campus. In the poem, I critique 
sculptors like Rodin, and I also comment on Stanford's own institutional censorship of 
breasted bodies.  
 


