Gary J. Shipley was grown from man-seed using the very latest hydroponics

BE SKUNK

by Gary J. Shipley

***

You got to be always skunk. There’s fuck all else to say – it’s the only stink there is. How else you gonna save yourself from the weak-assed perfume of just being okay, if you can’t stink it up more than them reekers too afraid to reek of anything?

What genus? Spotted, hog-nosed, hooded, any one’ll do. Just be that cunting skunk!

And if it happens, and it will, that you stink so good and proper people reckon you ambrosial, ask around for someone with a nose for anal air, death-row inmates, ambulance men, porn stars, plastic surgeons, any fuckwit with a voice, and ask them what it is they cannot smell, and the death-row inmate, the ambulance man, the porn star, the plastic surgeon will give it to you straight: “If you’re going to smell you might as well really stink like shit. Or else risk not being smelled at all, so go be skunk, skunk yourself the fuck up! And don’t stress the genus any, spotted, hog-nosed, hooded, malodour is where it’s at and always its own reward.”

***

 
I imagine ol’ raisin-nuts Baudelaire turning slowly yellow, his tits in a sack, his liver like a pockmarked turd, and I long to save him from all kinds of intoxication. I want to preserve him for unborn generations, who will recognise him not by sight but by the cut of his scent, a scent I’m proud to have initiated and prouder still to spread.
 
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Nina Gagen-Torn (1900-1986) spent 1936-1942 in the Kolyma labor camps

The Dying

by Nina Gagen-Torn

What does it mean—exhaustion?
What does it mean—fatigue?
Every movement is terrifying,
Every movement of your painful arms and legs
Terrible hunger—Raving over bread
“Bread, bread,” the heart beats.
Far away in the gloomy sky,
The indifferent sun turns.
Your breath is a thin whistle
It’s minus fifty degrees
What does it mean—dying?
The mountains look on, and remain silent.

 
 
When I’m not drafting up posts about “positivity” (for and against) I like to read books like Gulag by Anne Applebaum. The 16th chapter of Gulag begins with this poem. (I am staring out now at the sky). Proximity to death, in Art or in life, fills my veins with a kind of icy fire.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

“fire is the master young grasses appear” — Ikkyū

 ***

I tend to get lost in the trees so I like to check in with Jereme Dean because well I think of Jereme as a wise man, an oracle, a modern day version of Ikkyū the 15th century Zen Master:

they used sticks and yells and other tricks those fakes
Ikkyū reaches high low like sunlight

Jereme, furthermore, sits outside of writing movements, fashion, allegiances, etc, and there is an authority and a confidence to Jereme that I really respond to:

I live in a shack on the edge of whorehouse row
me autumn a single candle

And because Jereme will tell it you straight, a true oracle, I’ve decided to start up this new feature, “Ask the Oracle,” where, periodically, I’m going to put crucial questions to our modern-day Ikkyū.

***

and so, here then, now, is the first installment of “Ask the Oracle”:

***

Rauan: I’ve seen you poke fun at (or be scornful of, i guess) “Alt Lit” and, specifically, i think, Steve Roggenbuck. But are you really against these positive, energetic DIY youngsters? (& plz elaborate)

Jereme: Alt Lit has nothing to do with online writing, really. It’s a clique. Some have tried desperately to associate writing with the term, like people who feel their worthwhileness is minor and desire to be part of a movement–something remarkable!–or publishers looking to categorize their books for sale. But, don’t be fooled, alt lit is to writing like a cafeteria is to school education.

Internet literature isn’t new. There are plenty of people who’ve been around before the term was coined, and still are around, writing: Blake Butler, Sam Pink, Tao Lin, Daniel Bailey, Mike Young, Jimmy Chen, Brandon Scott Gorrell, etc.

True positivity is anchored and unafraid of negativity, it actually welcomes it. While asserting yourself as a Haitian mongoose, regardless of emphaticism, doesn’t negate being a human being who hates himself/herself.

“it takes horseshit to grow bamboo” — Ikkyū

Unsure where the idea of ‘positivity’ comes from though. I don’t see it. Feel like most people online make great efforts creating a fictitious identity, one which counters their insecurities, and the only way to actually believe the fantasy is to be chill/stay positive/chant affirmations. Because of this, the dissenting voice seems to be enemy number one to alt lit. They react ferociously READ MORE >

Sam Pink’s looking for a rich ‘big beautiful woman’ to take him to AWP — (“i’m a mobstaaaaah”)

DOG STORY

by Sam Pink

***

there’s this dog that lives a few blocks away from me. i always see him lying down in a fenced-in patio area out back. one time i saw a guy walking his dog by the fenced-in patio area and the guy stopped and stood there distracted–talking on his cellphone–as his dog pissed on the head of the dog lying down, who didn’t move.

***

i wrote this poem after rauan asked me if i had any poems. the main inspiration is a dog i saw getting pissed on, and also, rauan asking me for a poem.
 
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

1) Django Unchained is a “better” movie than 12 Years a Slave.

2) Harold Blood, Samuel L. Jackson (Stephen), and Brad Pitt (Bass): these three form the bedrock of the most original part of my argument. Force of character. Force of personality. (I’ll talk more about this later on).

3) The next part of my argument resides in “excitement”. In aesthetic pleasure. Yes, there’s something pleasing and thrilling about Tarantino’s excesses and indulgences, his operatic screams. And there’s something pleasing, immensely pleasing, about his success in creating a Western (a spaghetti Western) within a Slavery landscape because, well, that’s no easy task.

(and, plz, here let me point out that “Best Picture” does not mean “Most Necessary Picture”)

4) And the most important part of my argument is that 12 Years a Slave, though flawed, has become a kind of Sacred Cow and, thus, tends to get a free pass since it is so “necessary” (which it is, since “Americans tend to have amnesia about historical events*” and in the case of Slavery and all its horrors the amnesia is compounded by “deep trauma*”). So, because the movie is a valuable and needed wake-up call we can and need to kind of sweep its problems under the rug:

12 Years a Slave has some of the awkwardness and inauthenticity of a foreign-made film about the United States. The dialogue of the Washington, D.C., slave traders sounds as if it were written for “Lord of the Rings.” White plantation workers speak in standard redneck cliches. And yet the ways in which this film is true are much more important than the ways it’s false. (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)

Henry Louis Gates Jr

5) The quotes starred (*) above are from a TIME interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr. This interview’s a decent quick-bite read, but much more valuable and meaty is Gates’ interview with Tarantino (you can find it here on The Root) which is a wonderful series of insights into Tarantino’s intentions as well as Gates’ opinion of Tarantino’s accomplishments in what Gates calls “the best postmodern take on Slavery*.”

(* this last quote, again, is from the Time interview in which Gates also hails 12 Years a Slave as “the most realistic account of Slavery”).

6) An important and necessary movie, again, of course, isn’t necessarily the best movie, but here are some quotes from Anthony Stokes’ “On How 12 Years a Slave Succeeded where Django Unchained failed”

“with a matter as serious as slavery you should have more respect.”

READ MORE >

Danielle Pafunda resists the day’s terms even as she’s complicit in and bound to them, to carry them out. The children are calling that Playmobil cop Uncle Shootser, again. She’s taking unflattering pictures, no, she means just actual pictures of her navel while she reads Elisabeth Bronfen.

Your Conscript

by Danielle Pafunda

Get the fuck away from me. I’m sick and free.
I’ve puked my heart out and also my other organs.

My liver spills, my kidneys spilled, my blood
turns the color of a nuclear sunset and hums across

the spoiled garden path. I’ve been at these stones
with a shotgun. I’ve been nailing the doors shut.

In any event, I drowned your book in the river.
At the river, two large men grabbed my arms

and pinned me against a shipping container.
They tore your words out of my throat and held them

in the pink arc cast by a security light. Give him up
they told me, and I did. Over and over again

retching into their outstretched sack, retching
money and grief and the look of your hair

plastered down by an oily rain.

When I first ate that rat after I first regurgitated that rat (see Johannes) and wouldn’t you know that rat was high on cocaine and babies (see Scientific American January 2006) I had the tongue of a songbird stitched into my tongue (see Chelsea Biondolillo, see Katrina Van Gouw, see Philomela). A blank spot on my tongue. A salt scar on my tongue. I only speak English. I make a high-pitched whinny at which babies coo (see babies). I can identify tone. You have your search terms.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Rauan: When we chatted in person you mentioned that a big part of your outrageous onstage persona is a pushback against over-serious readers (performers of their own poetry, I mean) who, as you said, have absolute “no sense of humor.” Can you talk a bit more about these “serious” readers and your more “fun” and outrageous style then as a kind of antidote?

Evan: Poets are often outrageously arrogant and self-important, blaming readers if they don’t enjoy the work. What a cop-out. That grave delivery of words from a podium: is it any wonder most people don’t read poetry? I prefer poetic rock stars (though they can be just as arrogant). I’d rather be humble in person and outrageous during readings. I maintain that level of performance and spectacle to give the audience a multi-sensory experience. I want them to leave feeling gratified that they came to see it, hear it, not just read it. I want them to see costumes, hear me sing the disturbing pop lyrics I’ve brought attention to on the page, and occasionally eat whatever curious thing I set out for them.

RK: your books (The Midnight Channel and Skin Job) are filled with monsters and slasher film victims (final girls, or in a few instances, boys) but for me what stands out most is an experience and atmosphere of exuberance and glee. Are the books, then, just like yr reading performances, meant to be “fun” also??

EJP: Yes, absolutely! I feel that if I had fun writing a piece, many readers will have that fun reading it. Without an element of camp and glee, poetry (especially work as dark as mine) quickly becomes an exercise in despair, punishing the audience. I do love Sylvia Plath’s bombastic technicolor despair, but I don’t want to be an icy, detached poet, that arrogant “fuck you, dear reader” poet. I hate that guy. I want my reader to tap-dance with me through the haunted children’s hospital.

READ MORE >

Lillian Dylan lives alone. She dyes her hair every other week. All 300 of her facebook friends are gay. She likes it that way.

This poem is the result of a combination of two journal entries: one about my ex-boyfriend and another about my current boyfriend. The parts about loss refer to the former, the parts about sex, the latter. I write in my journal about sex and loss a lot because those are the two things I feel I have experienced most in my life. Although I don’t think of myself as a poet, I like the idea of taking things written in my journal and turning them into little crystal-like objects that I can observe, neatly, and throw away. I am currently in a loving 24/7 BDSM relationship.This is my first published poem.

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

Sandra Simonds lives a pretty boring life in Tallahassee, Florida. She works as a professor in Thomasville, Georgia. She is always tired. Sometimes she parks her car in random parking lots and just sits there and listens to music.

In some sense, this is a conceptual piece of writing in that it takes verbatim language delivered in one context (the stalker to me) and subverts it by delivering it back (me to the world) in an entirely different context/ new audience. It moves from the private (email) to the public (website) and in this sense it moves from the relationship of abuse (me and the stalker) to the relationship of reality/ sympathy and understanding (me and my other social relations). I would have never dreamed that I would write this sort of poem a year ago, but after having been stalked and harassed by this person for so long, after having called the police, after having ignored the stalker and fought back, I felt like writing the poem was my last recourse.
 

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!

The Penis List

Jim Behrle was recently featured in “Kill List” as a comfortable poet. It’s possible that he is the least famous poet to earn such a distinction. He lives in Jersey City, NJ. By day he wears a green t-shirt and a nametag at a university bookstore, fetching textbooks for people with bright futures. He lives his broken dreams, a famous internet poetry troll, he’s probably better known for crap like “Best American Poetry: The Cartoon”, “Stone Cold Poetry Bitches” and “What the Hell is Up With Your Author Photo?” Behrle really has to get more of that Ruth Lilly money somehow.

by Jim Behrle

Jim Behrle has a half inch penis
The Kill List Kid has a three inch penis
Vanessa Place has a six inch penis
Billy Collins has a four inch penis

The Poetry Foundation has a $100 million penis
But Poetry Magazine has a two inch penis
Your iphone is a mile long penis that’s
Always secretly fucking you

When you look at your iphone think “penis”
Google is a huge penis sticking out of
Everything everywhere
And where ever you go you bump into them all

Poetry is a huge warm wonderful vagina
But everyone treats it like a narrow
Tight, unbreakable asshole that only
One penis at a time can fit in so

You’ve got to out-penis everyone else
Manhattan and Brooklyn take an inch off
America’s penis is old and gross
But we’re working on it now 

The internet takes a half
Inch off your penis, snip, snip
Let’s just cut off all penises
Or yank them all out by the root

What will survive is love
And penises usually fuck that up, too

Kafka once wrote “We are incapable of loving, only fear excites us.” Behrle quotes this all the time, it is the only thing he’s ever read from Kafka. And he wants to sound smart. This poem began as a long list of poets and their perceived penis lengths but once he got to the line about Billy Collins penis he lost his stomach and turned it into something else. Vanessa Place’s penis on the other hand kills poetry every night, aw yeah. Behrle. . .

note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!