Brian McGuigan (of Seattle) talks Tao, Junot Diaz, Guns, Poetry Readings, etc……
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writing, like Nascar, needs to “twerk”
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Rauan: so what do you think of Tao Lin’s prose?
Brian McGuigan: Tao Lin is the literary equivalent of Nascar without the excitement of car crashes. I know people out there love his work (as there are many out there, like me, who don’t), but reading his prose is like watching cars drive in circles. His sentences lack much pulse. The verbs don’t twerk–they don’t even do the Hokie Pokie. They just lay there flat, motionless, like sex you don’t really want to have but you’re doing it because you know your partner wants it and you just want to go to bed. I feel the same about Lin’s dialogue, which is often cited as his skill, but it reads like a bad Miranda July movie, overcooked and unsalted. There’s just no spice. The sum of it all reminds me of writing I read in college workshops over a decade ago. If I could ever make it through one of his novels (Twenty pages into “Richard Yates” I chucked the book on the floor of a beloved Seattle indie bookstore and walked out.), I’d have red-penned the shit out of it. I’ve never understood the hype around Tao Lin. His writing just isn’t for me.
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w/ Spice — (twerkin’)
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Okay, so that was the first part of my latest Seattle Author Spotlight (# 8, featuring Brian McGuigan).
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Brian was, until quite recently, the program director at Hugo House. Brian’s still involved with Hugo House, curating among other events his regular and extremely popular Cheap Wine/Beer & Poetry/Prose nights, but now, after the success of his essay My fantasies of mass murder at Salon, Brian spends most of his working hours on a memoir regarding his experiences with violence, guns, etc. Brian McGuigan is street wise, a damned hard worker and has an excellent and elegant sense of humor. Coming out of a tough Irish family Brian certainly has toughness also and, though I don’t think he’s been to Ireland, Brian speaks as though he’s kissed the Blarney Stone several times! It was great chatting with him in preparation for this Spotlight.
And, to follow then READ MORE >
The Monotony of Work: Justin Sirois
Do you know this guy?
If you don’t, you should. His name is Justin Sirois and he is number one. (I stole “X is number one” from Noah Cicero.) If you asked me, I’d say: Justin Sirois is ace.
Ace Justin Sirois has an app. Who the fuck has their own app?!! Check it out. 4.99 never seemed so attractive. What can you get for 4.99? Not a pack of smokes, but you can get this app. Booms.
Author Spotlight & I Like __ A Lot & Massive People & Technology / 2 Comments
September 10th, 2013 / 12:42 pm
September 10th, 2013 / 12:42 pm
An Interview with Alissa Nutting
Alissa Nutting is the author of Tampa, a novel, and Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, a collection of short stories. Both are spectacular. Today, Alissa had a conversation with me about her new novel, how it was written, how it has been received so far, and the weird, scary, ugly mess that is American sexuality. It was great: you can and maybe should watch it. But regardless, you should buy and read her books.
Seth Abramson’s Using Me!!
— Seth Abramson —
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[ “…….. I’m kind of thinking, believing, that even without these peculiar and exceptional contexts (and this is impossible for me to truly know) that there’s something really compelling here. Something really fascinating. Many of you will think I’m goofing around here. I am not ……..” ]
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to follow is an excerpt from one of Seth’s newly-minted poems (available on Inknode (here) and on Youtube (here) where you can listen to the audio of the poem coming out of the visual of a disconcerting seated-figure):
“…Seth Abramson grabbed her. Threw her to the ground. Pulled off her pants. Ripped off her panties. Mounted her. Seth Abramson’s young pink balls rubbed painfully against her hairy twat. O Lord, he thought. O Lord. O Lord. And finally Seth Abramson collapsed in a young boy’s cumless climax. She pressed charges. Seth Abramson was arrested. But when they examined her they found no traces of semen or forced entry. And when they examined Seth Abramson it all made sense: he had a house-mouse cock…”
(from “Strangers,” a poem “comprised of 275 statements made by individuals I have not met.”)
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And this, if I might say so myself, is excellent work (ha ha), and I say so, because I have a sense of humor, and because I wrote a “version” of this in my Adventures of Sex Ableton (# 11, to be precises) that I posted READ MORE >
PUNGENT GRAPPLING: BARRETT WHITE INTERVIEWS SEAN KILPATRICK
I went buck with Sean Kilpatrick for his new book Gil the Nihilist: A Sitcom, now available from Lazy Fascist Press as a Secret Summer Release. I don’t know anyone who can splurge a word like Sean, and, as expected, things went batshit crazy. Gil is a mushroom cloud of splayed out wreckage, a garbled mess of Hummers and tacos and Kmarts and smegma. It’s as close to getting a surgeon general’s warning as a book can. This text is a health hazard. It’s a beautiful rind of pitch black beef.
………..Penny Goring…………
made especially for this feature — (thanks, Penny!!)
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anyone familiar with Penny Goring (her work, her Tumblr, her Tweets) will understand why I’m chuffed to be featuring her here in the 3rd installment of my UK Author’s Spotlight. anyone not familiar with Penny should check her out. most every link in this post will be to her Tumblr or Twitter. except for the one to her book, the zoom zoom.
(you’ll find Penny’s Bio at the end of this post.)
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brief interview:
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rauan: as far as writing goes where, if at all, do you draw the line?
penny: words or pics, it’s all the same to me, i don’t draw lines. my exes mum, after reading a poem of mine, he told me she sed to him: ‘someone needs to get her to stop. will she ever draw the line?’ but i won’t. because i don’t want to. if something happened to me it is mine. i can do what i like with it.
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rk: some people think that all Art comes from the way Male and Female bodies talk to each other, violent, gentle, in shadows, and in light. whatcha think? (and please elaborate)
pg: i’m always deeply cringing at any sweeping statements about what art is or isn’t etc. ugh. i’m not comfortable with the capital A either. being an artist feels more like a curse to me. i ran from it for what felt like a long time. but i got into lots of trouble, nearly died, ended up in rehab. so now i make stuff but i’m doing it compulsively. its like i’m a donkey chasing a carrot. and i put out too much work. i treat tumblr, facebook, twit, like a wall in a studio, not a show. if i’m working on it i’ll post it. that applies to my macros, vids, and written work. but then i’ll go back, within minutes, days, or weeks, and delete most of it.
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“pretentious as fuk”
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rk: the movie Ted and Sylvia is, undoubtedly, one of the great movies of our time. READ MORE >
Championing Re Re’s, Condemning Democracy: the Baby Marie-Antoinettte Interview
Once on a day not too long ago (though not too recent either) I met up with Baby Marie-Antoinentte. The second Bambi Muse baby despot, Baby Marie-Antoinette acquired remarkable notoriety for her “Dear White Race” letter, published in the spring of this year. But, obviously, Baby Marie-Antoinette has monstrous more going for her than just internet fame. Soon, Baby Marie-Antoinette will be the queen of France. Her reign will coincide with the French Revolution, that disgraceful period when the Third Estate (know as “the middle class” in America) will degrade, divide, and, in some cases, behead Baby Marie-Antoinette’s adored family.
Our meeting place was a charming diner on the Upper East Side. In an old-fashioned red-and-white striped booth, I took sips of a Sprite while Baby Marie-Antoinette nibbled on a piece of positively sweet cherry pie.
Having turned down a tsunami of interview requests, I asked her politely if I could publish our chat as an interview. After pondering the possibility with her mommy, Empress Maria Theresa, Baby Marie-Antoinette agreed, as I am, after all, Bambi Muse‘s CEO (and, also, the Empress received final approval).
Me (M): Hi…
Baby Marie-Antoinette (BMA): Hullo…
M: Your cherry pie looks very sweet and yummy.
BMA: It is, just like Tinker Bell, Ariel, and Miley Cyrus.
M: Oh, a lot of people are saying mean things about all three of those girls.
BMA: Yeah, but America is governed by the 99 percent, and they’re average, so they hate specialness, whether it’s a special fairy, a special mermaid, or a special actress/singer.
M: There was tons of scorn slung at Miley’s VMA performance last Sunday.
BMA: Yeah, the 99 percent was very mean about that, but I wasn’t. Miley acted like a re re. And re re’s are magical, like bruises or something.
M: I have a bruise on my knee from getting tripped up on a sidewalk on Broad Street.
BMA: What were you doing on Broad Street?
M: Screaming curses at investment bankers.
BMA: Oy…
M: What is your perspective on capitalism?
BMA: I, too, champion inequality, exploitation, a class system, and so on. But none of those things should be based on money. Anyone can get that. The world should be based on something that’s not so darn indiscreet, like pretty dresses or poems.
M: Can you elaborate please?
BMA: Only chosen creatures can deck a pretty dress decorously, and, likewise, only chosen creatures can compose a captivating poem.
M: Who can compose a captivating poem?
BMA: Baby Ji Yoon can. And so can Baby Carina. They’re both re re’s. One of Baby Carina’s poems is titled CARIO, Y R U SO CRUELLL xXxX. As for Baby Ji Yoon, she says, “my bellybuttons are very impressionable.”
M: Uh-huh, they do sound like lovely and splendid special-ed girls.
BMA: There’s also this girl called Lauren Shufran. Many of her poems are metered. She also made up a word, “Turdecken,” a combination of turkey, duck, and chicken. Normal people don’t know how to count syllables or come up with their own vocabulary. They’re too laid back and communicative; for example, Cate Marvin.
M: The VIDA girl?
BMA: Ugh… VIDA.
M: Do you abhor that advocacy group?
BMA: You bet I do. What consequence is it if Ploughshares publishes 14.759837422222222 percent more boys than girls? They’re all average, interchangeable poets anyways. VIDA doesn’t care if a poem is illuminating; for them, it’s just accessibility and equality. And that’s not poetry, that’s Park Slope lesbian self-esteem talk. Actual poetry is very discriminative and strict. Sylvia is — she killed her daddy and her husband.
M: Tyrants are violent too.
BMA: Yeah, they’re decidedly diehard. It’s delightful. I hope that Syrian boy wins. Americans should stop bombing other countries and mind their own business. Nobody wants to be a democracy, it’s so gross, like pecking the cheeks of Lloyd Blankfein, Ben Bernanke, and Timmy Geithner one directly after another.
M: Yuck!
BMA: We should do something pretty now.
M: Maybe we could quietly sing that song.
BMA: That song?
M: Yeah.
BMA: K.
Sounds of a Cowhide Drum
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A morning mist
and chimney smoke
of White City Jabavu
flowed thick yellow
as puss oozing
from a gigantic sore
These lines, the opening lines of a poem entitled “An abandoned bundle,” were composed in or around Johannesburg in the late 1960s. It is possible they were written in 1967 the year I was born. It is quite unlikely (but I guess it’s possible) that they were written on October 18, 1967, the exact day I was born in a white hospital in white Johannesburg. These lines, though, were most likely written in Soweto, or on a train between Soweto and Johannesburg, where the author Mbuyiseni Oswald Msthali lived and worked in the 1960s.
And then, a bit further down in the poem, we find
Scavenging dogs
draped in red bandanas of blood
fought fiercely
for a squirming bundle
and, finally, the “abandoned bundle” (the “squirming bundle”) is “a mutilated corpse – / an infant dumped on a rubbish heap-”
[ Sounds of a Cowhide Drum released in 1971 (Renoster Books). A new Jacana Media edition, including isiZulu translations of the poems as well as a foreword by Nadine Gordimer, is now available. ]
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Mtshali, somewhere, says “I am not a Liberal, Nationalist or Progressive but a black who tried to articulate the daily hopes and disappointments of his life.” But these are not simple poems. READ MORE >
…Paul Cunningham’s Poetry Patriotism — Pump-Pump!…
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In this day and age when most people are so politically apathetic and so many writers (especially the deadbeat young) are loth to mix beautiful politics with their beautiful poetics it’s more refreshing than a Mexican Coke (you know the ones with extra yummy sugar) to find a True Poetry Patriot like Paul Cunningham who sits squarely in American’s Great Big Bulging Heart:
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In amber waves of grain & purple mountains, above the fruited plain, Paul Cunningham, Paul Cunningham, God surely shed His grace on thee
(—-from Paul Cunningham The Beautiful)
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And, so, following but surpassing Joe Hall’s Poetry Road, Reb Livingston’s Poetry Home, and Carina Finn’s Poetry Youth in sheer American Joy, Industry, Charity & Greatness this is the 4th such photo shoot/interview where, again, the only rule’s that Paul has to answer in language from his manuscript-in-progress, The Stylets of Paul Sorbet
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Besides Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” Rammstein’s “Amerika ” (wunderbar!), The Ballad of Davey Crockett and all the rest of our beautiful and gauzy anthems what sort of ditties, aural-elevation sequences and rabid-hunting drum-beats (we have the right to bear! Yeah! we have the right to bear!) have you been listening to in the burning heart of your Poet Patriotism??
U.K. Author Spotlight (2) – Miggy Angel
Realizing that they speak and read English in the U.K. and that they write in it too (and because I’m originally from South Africa a kind of diamond and veldt version of the U.K. with much better weather and beaches), I’ve decided to start a new feature that follows kind of in the vein of the Seattle Author Spotlight series. So, periodically, now, I will be featuring a U.K. author.
The first UK Author Spotlight was of Gary J Shipley and the 2nd one, now, is of Miggy Angel. Miggy and I met on Twitter. It was love at first tweet, really. Miggy’s a wonderful tweeter. And a wonderful writer too. Miggy is also just a plain old good guy. Not a hipster. Not an asshole. Just a good guy who also happens to be a wonderful writer. It is my pleasure, then, to be featuring Miggy here.
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Brief Bio:
Miggy Angel is a poet, performer and workshop facilitator, born and raised in South London and currently resident in Nottingham. His first collection, Grime Kerbstone Psalms was published by Celandor books in February 2013. He is the co-organizer of the monthly poetry event, Speech Therapy – as well as the founder of the Do Or Die poets, and one half of the musical project We Bleed Ink, with producer/musician John Freer. He has work published online at Kill Author, 3AM Magazine, and elsewhere.
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Brief Interview:
Rauan: your story (Miggy Angel’s) is of hard times, perseverance, redemption and resurrection. Can you share with us about your lowest point(s)
Miggy: Wow, Rauan, you’re straight in there. Lowest point? You mean apart from every time I walk down the road, and get my heart broken by every single thing I look at? I mean, I started trying to write whilst I was living in a half-way house, then a homeless person’s unit. So, yeah, there have been some low points along the way – mental-health related, addiction, etc. In many ways my life was a sole, protracted low point all of its own, over many years. The perseverance you mention was just me trying to write my way out of a very black and very deep hole. I don’t really go with the redemption and resurrection narrative, mainly because those words have certain religious connotations, and also because I’m still very much in the trenches my friend.
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Miggy Angel — (“Migs in School”)
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