Alt Lit Diaspora: looking from the outside in with Luis Silva
Luis Silva runs Electric Cereal, a literary site dedicated to sharing the work of new and exciting voices. I like talking to Luis on facebook because we are facebook friends and we both consider ourselves outsiders in the lit scene (which we are totally okay with and even proud of). Like someone said on House M.D., I think it was Omar Epps’ character, “You can see a lot more when you’re on the outside looking in.” I’m unsuccessfully trying to find the exact quote on the House M.D wiki, but I can swear someone said something like that while I was binge-watching on Netflix.
Anyway, I sat down in my bedroom the other night and messaged Luis some questions about alt lit and we had a pretty lengthy and somewhat controversial conversation about the community. Keep reading.
Alexandra Naughton: What is alt lit? What does it mean to you?
Catalog of ri¢h poets: Jess Dutschmann
We’re flossy.
We’re the first poets to scream that we’re hot. We got our face tattooed on their arms. That’s right, we brought all the weird lit to the scene, and that’s right we’re the cats that’s getting the cream.
And it sucks because we want almond milk. Al-mond mi-ilk. Just because we are obtusely wealthy with our words and our pauses and our golden bars and other cliches doesn’t mean we don’t have standards.
Whatever. My thoughts are too expensive for you, anyway.
Another week brings another installment of our ri¢h poets series. Please throw your loose pocket change in the air and welcome Jess Dutschmann.
When Possible
The snake in the road was dead.
When you picked it up it shook
its body shook like dance recitals.
It still and then calm and the also
having breathing. Imagine snake
lungs. In and out thumbnails.
There was a wrong snake. Green
and maybe teeth but not angry.
You picked it up it shook alive.
You killed the snake with your
hands and every day the snake
going killing again. You it killed.
Blood can coagulate did you know
but not this little guy. Just a vine
maybe teeth but not hungry dead.
This poem is about snakes. Snakes, as anyone alive is aware of, are made entirely out of cash money. This poem is about not knowing too much about snakes, which are, as anyone alive is aware of, made entirely out of calcium and borax. This poem is about snakes. Snakes, as everyone knows, are already dead. This poem is about snakes, which the cast of The View drinks for every meal in a steaming hot smoothie, each little elongated hexagon scale flitting through the vitamix, catching light like eyelashes on cheeks.
Jess Dutschmann lives in the castle of every vanquished Disney villain. She bought them on the cheap after the usual fire-pit scene. She is made out of thousands of dollars of medical bills. She prays to sixteen gods nobody has heard of and they rain down golden coins until she blinks upward, both eyes bruised to hell, and grins bloodteeth. SheoOOOOoOOOOOOoooOOOOOOOOO
Catalog of ri¢h poets: Elizabeth Foster
Poets make that guap, right? Easy money. At least that’s what my nine to five office co-workers keep telling me.
It’s easy being poor, it’s much harder to be a ri¢h poet. People who are not poets have no idea how real the struggle is. Major label publishers, celebrities, Jay-Z– everyone wants a piece of the lyrical genius. It can be super overwhelming. Don’t even get me ranting about all those diamonds that get thrown at us on our way to the subway for the evening commute. Yowch! Thankfully, those precious stones can be ground up and sprinkled on cat litter to make that shit shine.
Today starts the first in a series profiling real life rich poets so that you get to know them, understand their pain. Please enjoy this poem by Elizabeth Foster and recognize that it’s hard out here for a ri¢h poet.
Ethan has nowhere to go, so he killed the author
Today I spoke with Jeremy Hight, the “curator” of a project called Ethan Has Nowhere To Go. What started as a short story became a multimedia online interactive experience once Hight killed the author by removing himself from the project, and handed over the creative reins to a number of artists. You can check out the project at Unlikely Stories.
Alexandra Naughton: Please tell me about your project.
Jeremy Hight: I wrote a 12 page short story called “Ethan Has Nowhere To Go.” Did a dozen drafts, had a writer’s group workshopping. The whole deal. Then it hit me when it was about be published– invert it.
Interviews / Comments Off on Ethan has nowhere to go, so he killed the author
May 6th, 2014 / 11:00 am
May 6th, 2014 / 11:00 am
Alexandra Naughton—
So check it out. My name is Alexandra Naughton. Some call me “tsaritsa.” Some call me “based goth.” Others call me “fuckhead.”
27
The Moon’s Jaw
The Moon’s Jaw
by Rauan Klassnik
Black Ocean, Feb 2013
76 pages / $14.95 Buy from Black Ocean or Amazon
Rauan Klassnik writes and makes ugly things seem kind of beautiful.
Rauan Klassnik is a writer I follow on Twitter. A while back he sent me a tweet asking if I would like to review his new book, The Moon’s Jaw, and of course I said I would. Several days later, a package arrived in the mail containing two books, The Moon’s Jaw and Klassnik’s previous work, Holy Land (2008), both with autographed and illustrated title pages.
There are recurring images in both collections of prose poetry: shooting guns and shooting cocks, the female body (sometimes bruised, sometimes being ejaculated on), circles, god, duality (simultaneously: man & woman, love & hate), birds, restraints, death.
The images in The Moon’s Jaw add up to bizarre dreamscapes of the fearful, beautiful, and grotesque. Lines read like excerpts from an erotic horror film script:
“Under the moon’s tightening wrists–Leaning down to pet yr dog, you looked up at me & shot the dog in its face. We fucked. & we fucked again. & when I came to you were sucking me off.” (page 15)
“Waves. & Flowers. Revolving. In black lace: Gurgling. You’re pushing me back down on the bed now. & you’ve got my wrists above my head. & you’re eating me out– Licking up between my breasts. It’s dusk. Lights, Wound, Up, In a Spiral: Hooked–Thru Me, Like Gut, On, Fire. Yr grip’s tightening. I’m sinking: Like fish–In cool shade. Birds, like planets–All ripped up.” (page 22)
2 Comments
June 7th, 2013 / 11:00 am
June 7th, 2013 / 11:00 am