Here are 20 reasons why everyone should get a copy of Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick’s chapbook Hummingbird Mindby Mouthfeel press. The following are all quotes from her chapbook. This is only a tiny list, there are more than 20 reasons to read this book.
There are tiny cities on the skin (9).
After his mother’s death, he began composing (10).
I feel I’m held together/because I’m loved by something (11).
What are you doing with the paper clips? he said (12).
Under the weight of what the dinner party tries to lift, loneliness vibrates (13).
I could wire my voice inside the ear (14).
———————I want to know something (15).
I did my breathing exercises today (17).
fields present themselves to horses (19).
I’d see things: starts, a Chopin symphony/floating madly (20).
to live, despite darkness (21).
You will never believe (23).
but friend, undo yourself and then get back to me (27).
To answer your question–no, I never learned about perennials (28).
Did you write me most days (29).
I have a friend named So-and-So,/mad about things like that (30).
Before she got sick/she stuck things in her blue jeans–pockets filled with letters (31).
I/snipped up her favorite clothes because I wanted to–/the slumber party was boring (32).
S.E. Smith is 1/6 of the Line Assembly Poetry Tour and Documentary (help fund their project here).
Can you draw us a picture of the pony of darkness?
Oh man, I’m not so much for drawing, but I can tell you this: If the pony of darkness were a member of Fleetwood Mac, it would be Mick Fleetwood.
When did you start writing? Can you remember the first poem you ever wrote?
I was one of those do-everything-arty kids, for sure. In elementary school, my best friend and I wrote a new play every week and performed it for my parents after dinner on Friday. (These were a decidedly surreal affair; the only plot line I can remember featured a purple sea anemone terrified of a huge pink crayon.) I didn’t differentiate my writing impulse until middle school or so, when I took my first proper creative writing class, but by that point, I was already reading a bunch of Emily Dickinson, and I was infatuated with this great anthology edited by Kenneth Koch called “Talking to the Sun.” It pairs works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art with poems, everything from Ashbery to Basho.
Even before I knew how to read, I was kind of infatuated with words, how they worked, what shapes they made. My first experiments with writing were a lot more like drawing—I would spill out this long strings of unrelated letters, make them bigger, upside-down, reverse them, kind of doodle with them. One day, my momma noticed what I was doing because one of my random strings of letters, when I reversed it, spelled out LOVE. And she was very happy about this, although I didn’t understand why. So, effectively, I guess I consider that the first poem I wrote.
How did the idea for the Line Assembly project come about? Was there one moment, or did it happen gradually?
Line Assemby is the brainchild of Ben Pelhan, our brave leader and wise college friend. At last year’s AWP conference in Chicago, he gathered us in a middle eastern restaurant situated in the back room of a jewelry store (true) to propose the idea of a poetry tour and documentary. Almost everything else—the name, the methods, the particularities of what kind of poetry experiences we want to facilitate on tour—has evolved as a collaborative process.
That said, I think Line Assembly’s development started way back when we were all in college together. The idea of poetry being elitist or useless is one we’ve been developing responses to for years. Many of us took a seminar from our mentor Terrance Hayes called “Readings in OUT Poetry” that dealt with poetry’s accessibility—what that actually means, what it should mean. I credit our teachers, and Pittsburgh at large, too, for making us particularly sensitive to how literature exists in a place, how it disperses in a neighborhood, where it goes. Independently, I think we came up with a shared sense that the popular idea about poetry’s death and its shrinking audience is total bull. Just last week, Huffington Post ran a piece to this effect, claiming (I suppose?) that it’s near impossible to make poetry interesting to students. We’ve taught poetry to all kinds of folks and in all kinds of places, ranging from elementary schools to senior centers, and if anything, we’ve seen the opposite time and again.
I’m glad that we’re visiting everybody’s hometown on the tour, because I think it’s important to show that poets come from all kinds of places. Some of these poetry-obsolecense think-pieces make it sound like we’re all rarified test tube babies raised on a diet of manna and Keats in some kind of cultured paradise—nope! It’s insulting, really. I can’t wait to hit the road and find poetry, and poets, in unexpected places. We know they’re alive and well, and we can’t wait to meet them. And we can’t wait to film the whole thing to document the liveliness of the grassroots literary world.
How did you come up with a title for your first book of poems (I Live in a Hut--winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize)?
“I Live in a Hut” began as my MFA thesis at the Michener Center for Writers, and when I wrote much it, I lived in a garage apartment in Austin. These are pretty standard in Texas; some of them look like miniature houses, but mine was very palpably a former place to park cars. My landlady refurbished it in the Seventies, so it was all faux woodgrain and sky-blue carpet, a really odd, tiny house that suited me perfectly. I didn’t completely realize this at the time, but I think the title references my slightly standoffish relationship to autobiography. Well, maybe standoffish isn’t exactly the word—it’s more like a sense of suspicion, especially given the expectation that first books will shed some kind of biographical light. Many of the poems in the book shade into persona or rely on a circumscribed kind of set-piece, so it seemed a good counterbalance to make the title sound almost confessional. What are you currently working on?
I pingpong back and forth between poetry and fiction (I’m studying fiction presently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop). Fictionwise, I’m working on a collection of short stories with novel plans on the horizon, but I’m keeping that a little hush-hush for the moment. Poetrywise, I’m finishing my second full-length collection, mostly tinkering and shoe-horning new poems into it. That all sounds so frightfully ambitious, but in a sense, all that really means is that I’m writing every day, you know? I try to keep some kind of engagement stoked in the background, whether that means reading poems aloud at night or playing pointless power chords. I’m working on my singing voice, my muscles, my vegetable-roasting technique. Somehow, it feels to me like this all goes in the same direction.
Where is one place you’d like to travel with the Line Assembly Poetry Tour?
If we had more resources (and more time!), I’d love to extend our tour into Appalachia and the South, maybe into Texas. I grew up in the Appalachian foothills, and the availability of literary resources—all kinds of resources, really—has always been a concern to me. If something like Line Assembly had passed through Greene County, PA, when I was growing up there, you can believe I would have been the first in line for the workshop. I prefer living in cities and I love visiting them, but for this particular project, I’m most excited to hit the small towns. Obviously, we can’t permanently uproot our lives and we’re funding things on a tight budget, but I think it would be amazing to take Line Assembly into Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi. Maybe someday? In my typical maximalist fashion, I’ve answered your question with a non-answer, but really, it’s the truth!
If someone walked through your door in the next five minutes, who would you want it to be any why?
Oh, Lenny Bruce, definitely. He’s been No. 1 on my historically impossible list of dream husbands for quite some time now. The flights he pulled off within the stand-up form are heartbreaking, sly, wonderful beyond belief. I would love to see whether his moment-by-moment wit measures up to his performances, or at least make him a cup of coffee and subject myself to some blonde shiksa jokes.
Can you tell us a joke? (We LOVE jokes).
This joke is stolen from my father:
DAD: Hey, honey, have you heard about the inflation in contemporary poetry?
ME: No, dad, how’s that?
DAD: Instead of metaphor, it’s now meta-FIVE.
Oh, what a groaner! But really, I love dad jokes, dad humor. Midwestern dad humor is, I think, of an especially wry vintage.
HAHAH. We actually laughed. I think that makes us a dad-joke-loving person as well. If you weren’t a poet what would you be doing?
You know, I’ve always rolled my eyes a little when somebody claims that if they weren’t a writer they’d be dead or some similarly overblown thing, but I honestly can’t imagine what else I would be. I think that reflects a failure of my imagination rather than fact, though. Or, look at it this way: I think that a lot of people who make things evolve a private conversation with their creative process. The dialogue between themselves and what they make generates the next thing, the next question, the next knot to undo, and I think this is true whether they make chairs or hairdos or hand-tooled leather or aggressively decorated sheet cakes. Writers and artists aren’t the only ones who produce a body of work. I think the quality of attention is more important than what kind of work you’re doing, as long as you’re making something. I’m sure I would be making something. I can’t shake it. It’s my favorite thing to do.
To start poetry month & April fool’s day, I thought I’d share the fact that the New York Times has a haiku bot. Can I have one of these in my house?
Haiku from The New York Times
Times haikus are computer generated by programmer Jacob Harris. Although the program does not follow proper haiku rules, neither did Jack Kerouac’s haikus, and we’re okay with that! The algorithm, like any good editor, discards poems that aren’t as good.
When you are finished looking through all the awesome haikus for National Poetry Month, make sure you check out (if you want, of course, I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do) the Pulitzer remix where 85 poets will remix Pulitzer Prize-winning poets. The project is sponsored by the Found Poetry Review.
What? Talk about myself? Sure, why not! Thanks to Shannon Hardwick & her awesome blog, I will be responding to the following questions, although because I do not have a book out, it’s going to be kind of boring.
1. What is the title of your book? Is it a working title?
It’s not actually a book, it’s a manuscript. So far the working title is Dovetail Down the House.Hopefully it becomes a book one day.
2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
Well the ideas are still forming, but I am interested in the idea of possession. Not like ghosts possessing my body, although that may be part of it, but more about the type of possessing that we do daily–the interaction we have with our objects, our lovers, ourselves. Ghosts are always also a part of that I think, literal or figurative depending on what you believe in, but the idea that memories can haunt us, or our past can haunt us, or sometimes, the way we can haunt ourselves has a part in the manuscript.
3. Who and/or what inspired you to write your book?
Dreams, houses, desks and kitchens.
4. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
My first draft took about one year to write. I believe that I will continue to work on the manuscript for another 2 years before it is “finished,” but who knows.
5. What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry.
8. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?
We are waiting to be submerged into something.
8. Do you have a publisher, or will you self-publish your book or seek representation?
I do not have a publisher because it is not complete. Maybe one day.
10. What else about your book might pique readers’ interest?
Blackout poems. Who doesn’t love a blackout poem?
9. What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie or to read your work for a recording?
James Franco (I am mostly joking), Animated Characters, & Inanimate objects.
I am opening this up to YOU GUYS. You are the Next Big Things. Please answer these questions on your blog & link to someone else.
Here are 20 reasons why you need to pick up a copy of Matthew Burnside’s new chapbook “Escapologies” from Red Bird Chapbooks. Each of these lines is from “Escapologies”, which was printed by Red Bird Chapbooks in 2013.
“in your mouth the stubborn stir of birds” (13).
“you look down at your daughter underfoot flapping her arms with the quickening hope of/hummingbird wings & know she will be clean” (14).
“That tomorrow a blanket of fog that had obscured the torch-tips of/tinny stars above could lift like accidental Baptism to lantern your way / home” (15).
“She’s sick of not knowing the question” (16).
“the lonely gears / that grind a man’s heart cannot be unwound” (17).
“Making art of his scars he swirls scab frescos” (18).
“The big bad wolf wasn’t born that way- it took years of / parental malpractice to make imperfect” (19).
“Now she can’t stop feeding her awful appetite” (20).
“Everything is never too late until it is” (21).
“Every muscle was a taut string in a grand piano missing / its white keys” (22).
“…we explored the one billion/ possibilities of bumblebee assassination” (23).
“He is unafraid to die” (24).
“I’ve never seen anything as sinless as your pale thin/wrists–file under Things I Should Have Told You When I Had You Here / In The Passenger Seat ” (25).
“Judas kissed the wrong guy” (26).
“Language is broken” (27).
“We returned to the sacred cows” (28).
“rain eventually swallows everything” (29).
“give me the neon knives of your eyes clean careening, in free flight at/ maximum aperture” (30).
‘girl, your Sega Genesis heart is so precious” (31).
“everyone is hungry for / something everyone is full” (33).
Well&Often was officially born in 2011. I had been thinking about starting a press for some time, but the opportunity arose when Caits and I finished the manuscript for our book. I knew I’d wanted to self-publish but I didn’t want to do one book and leave it at that. There’s a stigma that comes with self-publishing and I guess part of it was a desire to do more than just put out my own book. I began looking into authors who also published. Virginia Wolf’s Hogwarth Press was a huge inspiration. Around the same time, I’d been reading a lot about the life of Frederick Douglas. Small publishers, particularly of newspapers, were an integral part of the abolitionist movement. While I’m not necessarily driven by any particular agenda, being able to send a message to your own village is powerful, even if it’s done on a small scale.
That’s the sort of heady conceptual impetus that went into birthing Well&Often. The nuts of bolts of it are far less interesting. It involves setting up an LLC, spending money I was saving for a motorcycle, and convincing my friends to get involved. Actually, I’ll take this opportunity to thank the friends I managed to convince: Caits Meissner, a founding editor and the Education Editor of The Well&Often Reader; Nora Salem, Fiction Editor; and Anna Meister, Poetry Editor of The Well&Often Reader. They all care deeply about what we’re doing and it’s an honor to work with them.
How do you choose which manuscripts you accept?
So far we’ve published two books, my book with Caits and Safia Elhillo’s new chapbook. I’d been introduced to Safia via Caits and I instantly fell in love with her work. She mentioned she was working on a chapbook and I asked to see it. The poems were quite strong so I asked if she’d be down with Well&Often publishing it. Right now, our primary focus is on The Well&Often Reader, our online magazine. As a small shop, we’re content with putting out one book a year. Hopefully, in the future we can do more, but for now the plan is to reach out to writers whose work we love.
What is your background like? Where did you study?
I graduated from Pratt Institute’s Communication Design program with a focus in graphic design. As far as writing goes, I studied on the streets. Kidding, I was fortunate to have gone to primary and secondary schools that focused heavily on writing. Though I decided to go into design, I made a point of reading and writing constantly. While at Pratt, I ended up having to take all my required studio courses last because I was too busy taking liberal arts courses. Mark Twain, DFW, and William Carlos Williams are among my literary crushes and their work has definitely seeped into my own writing.
Can you run us through how a manuscript gets from manuscript to published book?
Well, once the manuscript is done (which usually ends up not being the case until the very last email with the printers before they push the button), I spend a lot of time with the work and start to think about possible ways to package it. What typeface should we use? What kind of cover should it have? What kind of paper should it be printed on? Binding? Once a concept has been chosen, I begin reaching out to printers for estimates. So far, we’ve only worked with local printers (shout out to RollingPress in Brooklyn), which tends to be more expensive, but keeps things simple as far as proofs go. Around this time is when the book is assigned an ISBN number and we start thinking about how we’re going to sell it. So far, we’ve gotten into some local shops but our primary point of sale is the Well&Often website. After the book is designed and at the printers, we try to set up a book launch event and other readings. We also try to get the book reviewed. When the boxes of books come in, we promote heavily on various social media sites and wait for the cash to start rolling in. Just kidding, cash sort of absentmindedly saunters in, but books do sell, which is a good feeling.
Do you get paid for running Well&Often? If not, what’s your day job?
Nope. This whole enterprise is a labour of love. We all have day jobs or are working on getting our MFAs (Hi Anna!). I’m an Exhibition and Interactive Designer at a leading exhibition planning and design firm.
If you could be a character in a movie, what character would you be?
I’d be the celebrity cameo that plays God. Think Alanis Morissette in Dogma or Tom Waits in that other movie nobody ever saw. Honestly though, I’d be happy to play Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump.
What was it like publishing your book “The Letter all Your friends Have Written You”? What kind of responses have you received for your book?
Publishing “The Letter…” was a great experience. It was our first book so I learned a whole lot about the publishing process. Also, the book was funded via Kickstarter which was a huge boost of confidence. The response has been at once gratifying and humbling. We got a number of excellent reviews (Used Furniture Review, Pank Magazine, BooksMatter). The most common response we’ve gotten is how beautiful the book is as an object. A young woman recently shared with me how a particular poem in the book helped her through a difficult time. That kind of response always feels good. That’s really what you hope for when you put out a book – that something inside that book reaches someone.
If something could happen to you in the next five minutes, what would that be?
I’m currently drinking white wine and standing next to a fireplace. In five minutes, I suppose I could take a seat. I could also get the urge to pee. I’ve been sipping on this wine for some time.
Can we see a picture of your work/writing desk? If you do not have one… please supply us with either a picture of your sock drawer, a drawing of a cat, or a sound file of you singing.
Well, this is embarrassing but here goes a little ditty I recorded during a summer romance a few years back. I dont know, maybe it was the song that did it but the relationship didn’t go very far.
What do you do if a friend asks you to look at their work and it’s terrible. What do you say to them?
Having gone to art school and having a job in which my work is constantly being critiqued, I’ve grown used to giving and receiving constructive criticism (I mean, you’ve now heard my music). If someone’s work isn’t ready, especially the work of a friend, the best thing I can do is advise them on how to improve it. I’d probably also take the opportunity to point out the work’s merits.
If I wanted to be featured on your radio station in a talk show (bboxradio.com) what would I have to do?
You’d have to get in touch with Donna Meredith of BBOX or a specific show host via the website. I was heavily involved in the process of getting BBOX started but I’m not a part of the day-to-day operations.
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to start a small press?
Research. The internet is your best friend as far as advice goes. Also, research as many printers as you can. Get more than one estimate.
What place do you think small presses hold in the poetry world? Are they becoming more necessary? Along the same lines, do you think that technology has changed the face of poetry?
Small presses are absolutely necessary. Because of the democratization of publishing, due to the internet and the availability of tools, there are thousands of small publishers. While this might seem like over-saturation, a good small publisher is cultivating a distinct voice and speaking to its community.
What is in your refrigerator? Pictures please?
Old shit. Absolutely not.
Could you write us a poem using the following words: suitcase, moldy bones, unbuttoned skin?
The weatherworn suitcase sat unused.
Its ashen leather seemed to say, “I have only space
for moldy bones and unbuttoned skin.”
Where do you see Well&Often in 5 years?
In 5 years I see Well&Often with a small but respectable catalog. The Well&Often Reader will be considered one of the best lit mags on the web and a resource for teachers and educators (See our lesson plans!) Readers will come to us expecting to find writing that represents what is to come – writing from new and perhaps unheard of voices. Writers will come to us knowing that, despite being a small press, Well&Often is known and respected for the quality of its publications. I also see us with way more likes on Facebook (Like us!).
Matthew is the author of Escapologies, forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks. He is managing editor of Mixed Fruit Magazineand attends the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he studies fiction. He keeps a list of his sins at MatthewBurnsideisawriter.tumblr.com. TellTell was lucky enough to have Matthew discuss his chapbook with us. (Psst he even drew us a picture map of his dream story! Check it out! & Pick up a copy of his chapbook!)
What’s your “day job”
At the moment, my day job consists of fighting the urge to watch Youtube videos, which the twin devils on my shoulders often convince me is a good investment of my time; the assholes. I suppose it’s always a battle to slap yourself out of a trance of consumption to actually make something of your own. There’s a lot of weird creativity on the net and I’m a product of it. (I think we all are these days, for better or worse.) Lucky for me, I’m pretty sure Youtube is running out of videos that I haven’t seen yet.
Somehow I do still manage to write for several hours each day. A part of me is very serious, professional, and disciplined about getting words on the page. This part of me knows not to waste the gift I’ve been given here at Iowa. I owe it to myself and to those who gave me the opportunity, and especially those who would do just about anything to be in this position to focus on their writing for a few years. Therefore, I’m getting pretty good about breathing invisible lasers at those distraction devils.
Next year I’ll be teaching again, though. That’ll be good for me. Working with young people has a way of stirring the enthusiasm for language and narrative like nothing else.
Please tell us how you get into the “writing zone.” Any weird things you do, drink, watch, or think about?
Music often opens me up to the possibilities of language. I think because language to me is just another form of music. I’ve been known to watch clips of weird stuff beforehand as well: old cartoons, creepy commercials, propaganda, documentaries. I listen to a lot of classical music, mostly. Copland, Stravinsky, Dubussy, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Chopin.
[Readers: in case you are interested, here is an old cartoon from 1914. Now you can get into the writing zone like Matthew Burnside! Enjoy.]
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? If so, can you tell us about it?
Vividly. It was about a little glass man who lived in a cuckoo clock that only a little girl could see. Her mother and father were always fighting, and naturally the little girl’s only friend in the world was this glass man. The mother would never believe one word about the girl’s imaginary friend. Anyway, one day there was a vicious fight and the father stormed off and the little glass man was crushed accidentally by the barefoot mother, who then bled to death. That was the story. I had meant for it, I think, to be a sort of reverse cautionary tale for parents. It was so dark I think the fourth grade teacher worried for my mental health. I don’t think you have to be twisted inside to imagine such things – you just have to have a deep awareness of ache, of the tenderness and fragility of people. I think this is how all writers begin but I can’t prove that.
How do you know when a story is finished?
When it feels like mine. That is, when it feels like something only I could’ve written.
Do you believe that the publishing and writing industry is moving more towards internet publishing? How do you feel about self publishing?
I personally submit more to online publications these days because I like how available it is. I think more people read it online – people who aren’t necessarily writers – where for the most part only writers buy print journals. I subscribe to a number of print journals and I love them all. There’s something about having a tactile thing to hold in your hands that the internet could never replace. But yeah, I’d rather appeal to more than just writers with my work, and I believe the internet is one way to do that. I’ve never given a lot of thought to self publishing. I have nothing against it and I admire people who just go out and do it without hesitation, though I suspect there are limitations to doing it this way.
How long did it take for you to find a home for your chapbook and what was it like?
I had entered a few chapbook contests, of which Escapologies received several quick rejections and one finalist status. A few months, maybe? I got lucky stumbling across a press early on that would have me. I wrote this long email where I wrote about my belief in language and its ability to save lives. It was dramatically phrased and probably not very professional but it was something I truly believe. I think if writers are going to risk naivety, then that’s a good thing to be naïve about. Anyway. I think what I said lined up with the theme of the chapbook which is about the abuse of small things–about survival of the heart through the wilderness of childhood, and then later in adulthood, those dark echoes we encounter from early traumas.
If someone could walk into your door in the next five minutes who would you want it to be and why?
Toshiro Mifune holding hands with Humphrey Bogart holding hands with Rod Serling. (I don’t know why but it feels like if they’re holding hands they can somehow count as just one person, thereby bending your rule.) These gentlemen pop up as archetypes in my fiction more than anybody else. I think they were all geniuses. My writing dream has always been to write an episode of the Twilight Zone – not to win a Pulitzer or sell 50 gazillion copies of something or buy a yacht with a big book advance. I was born at the wrong time, I guess. Right now I’m working on a book of short shorts all under a page, “100 Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror” which is basically all 10-second episodes of the Twilight Zone.
That sounds perfect. The first episode of The Twilight Zone is my favorite! So you are locked in a box with 2 things. What are those things? None of those things will help you escape. Sorry.
That’s ok. None of us escape in the end. My two things: an MP3 player loaded up with the soundtrack of my life, including my dog growling during tug-o-war, my girlfriend’s laugh, my niece telling me I’m silly, and Copland’s “Promise of Living.” And probably a tub full of sour candy.
Can you write us a small little diddy about the following things: bird feet, long beards, girls who look like lampshades?
Steve Buscemi got bird feet
with a long beard
digs those girls lookin’
like lampshades.
(I apologize for my lack of creativity on this one. Just finished working on a big old project and I am without poetry at the moment.)
Fondle, Marry, Go to an Opera with: Bjork, Joanna Newsom, My mom.
Marry Joanna, Fondle your mom, go to the opera with Bjork.
What is one song that you could listen to on repeat forever?
Probably this track from the soundtrack to Henry V.
What does your writing desk look like? Pictures please!!
It’s literally an empty basement. I’m fine with music but as far as visual stimuli, the walls around me have to be completely bare. My laptop sits elevated on a cheap coffee table propped up with some old shoe boxes.
If we opened your body and pulled out your heart, your brain, and your stomach, and they were all filled with something, what would each be filled with?
Heart:
Brain:
Stomach:
Do you have any advice for new writers?
Since I’m still a new writer, I’ll give myself some advice I wish somebody had given me.
Slow down. It isn’t a race. Say what burns out of you now and don’t save it for tomorrow. Sacrifice everything to the page. When you sit down with a great idea for a story and halfway through the story the story seems to want to go elsewhere or do something else, listen to the story. Listen to the language. Let the ghost of it haunt you. It’s right, in any case. Trust your instincts. Publication is a fun game but it’s all just practice for the better story or poem you’ll one day write. It’s ok to fail. You’ll fail a lot and sometimes you’ll win but don’t let it go to your head because you’ll still fail more than you win. Learn to love your ambitious failures, for that love will lead you to places you never imagined possible. Help people when you can. Don’t ever belittle them for being where you used to be. Remember there are people ahead of you right now showing you the same kindness. Don’t make a habit out of comparing yourself to other writers. You aren’t them and they aren’t you. You couldn’t tell their story any better than they could tell yours. Read. Read everything you can. Don’t forget that which your art symbolizes. Don’t use it to escape your own life. Believe in people. Believe that every sinner can be redeemed and every saint can fall. Believe that no villain was born that way. Pay attention to the living around you as well as the dead. Give voice to those without one, or those who’ve lost theirs due to some cruelty. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you do something: just go do it, and if someone tells you can’t do something, then do the same. Always face the light, and if there’s none to face, know at least that light exists somewhere. Know something bad can’t last forever and neither can something good, so embrace both. Don’t kill a dog in a story unless you’re willing to acknowledge the fictional pain of that creature as real as any other dog’s in the world. Make yourself write something every day, even if it’s shit. Even if it’s literally just the word ‘shit.’ Always say thank you and consider that the person on the other end of the email or phone line or piece of mail may be having the worst day of their life. Write what’s true regardless of logic. Don’t forget how to laugh. Being cynical is easy: remember that. It’s hard to be a person, so be kind to people. Be a good person above a good artist, always.
Would you rather get 10 million dollars for writing a story that sells out/talks shit about/hurts every one you’ve ever loved, or would you rather live in a box and eat green beans for the rest of your life, but be able to write about whatever you want and have everyone you’ve ever loved love your stories?
Green beans.
Velvet or cotton? Why?
Cotton. Because I used to suck my thumb as a kiddo and I had this weird tactile thing where I’d touch my chin to this cotton shirt. It was weird, but that’s why cotton is my jam.
If you could have one ridiculously expensive piece of writing equipment what would it be and why. (Monte Blanc, Deerskin notebook etc.)
I have a lot of fancy stuff that I’ve never really utilized when writing. Things I bought a long time ago to make me feel like a writer. Props, I guess. All you really need is a quiet room. Maybe a bubble pipe and a crystal decanter full of Kool-Aid?
Yes. Kool-aid…mmm. Where do you see yourself in 20 years? What are you wearing?
I’d like to think we’ll all be driving mini hovercrafts around and wearing cool futuristic fashions by then: chrome Velcro jackets with neon visors and maybe holographic capes . . . but we’re probably just wearing T-shirts. In 20 years I hope I’m still writing, but it’s possible I’m stacking trees again.
If you could take one fictional character to your grandma’s house for dinner, who would you take and why. (Keep in mind, your grandma will think you two are dating and she won’t like it.)
Since my grandma has passed, I’d probably choose to take my grandma because then I’d get to see her again for at least the duration of a meal. I hope she doesn’t confuse it for a date, though.
What do you hope for out of life?
To do more good than bad while I’m alive.
How many hours did you put into your chapbook?
A lot. It’s hard to know for sure. I probably didn’t go about it the right way. I noticed I tend to write in three very different modes. Escapologies is about smallness and the abuse of small things, and represents the first mode which is more vulnerable, less cynical writing. This is the part of me that believes in the redemptive grace of language. The second mode has to do with an obsession with ghosts and being erased. These pieces are usually darker, more gothic. The third mode is the closest to my actual personality and it’s more playful, as well as slightly cynical and skeptical of the limits of language and authority and the conventions of poetry. Pieces written in this last mode are the most unlikely to actually find a publisher because most of the time they’re anti-poems and they’re all full of piss and kittens and Steve Buscemi shout-outs.
At a certain point you start to tune in and hear what your writing wants. I think it’s best to shut up and listen. I’m still learning to listen.
Can you draw us a picture-map of your dream story?
There you have it folks. What more could we ask for? ^^^ Amiright?
Michael Mlekoday, the author of “The Dead Eat Everything” (Kent State University Press, 2013), and a National Poetry Slam Champion, sat down with TellTell to give us the lowdown on his life.
When did you start writing? Did you always want to write?
I started writing in high school, but not fiction or poetry, exactly: I wanted to be a rapper. It wasn’t until college when I learned about poetry slam—thinking it’d be a great venue to read my awesome raps (nope and nope)—but I was immediately hooked.
Rapping aside, you won the National Poetry Slam in 2009…what the heck was that like?
It was wild. There was just something magical about that summer, the way our team came together and worked and practiced and glowed. Something I’m particularly proud of: you always get to Nationals and hear about such-and-such team who has 12 group poems (poems with more than one performer in them) ready for the tournament, because they’re generally thought to score higher than individual poems. This had been the way that teams have won Nationals for at least the previous ten or fifteen years—one of the most basic strategic decisions teams made. Instead of taking that route, my teammates (Khary Jackson, Sierra DeMulder, and Guante) and I just worked and re-worked our solo poems all summer, revised and practiced a bunch, and we went and won the tournament by using 16 different individual poems—I don’t know if any other team has done that.
Wow! That’s a super-duper achievement if I’ve ever seen one! After that you coached the team to its second championship…what kind of tips or advice did you give the team?
There are lots of different elements of coaching a poetry slam team—particularly if you’ve got a coach who knows what s/he’s doing. There’s writing workshops and revisions—making sure the poems are doing the work they should be doing, making sure everything makes sense and is clean and crisp, etc. Then there’s performance workshopping: we talk about things like tone, pitch, emotional arcs, choreography. Just like a writing workshop, we focus on how the performance comes across as a whole, and we also do line-edits, making sure that each line and each word is intoned in the most effective possible way. There’s also slam strategy, which I’m particularly interested in.
If you’ve got 20 poems ready to go for the tournament, you need to figure out which order you want to perform them in, what combinations you want to use, how to respond to different kinds of poems opponents might use—it’s typically the coach’s job to make the final decision regarding these questions. And finally, just like in sports, there’s the element of team morale; the coach ought to be monitoring how hard the team members are working, how they’re getting along, and how they’re feeling. I’ve seen otherwise fantastic coaches lose poise in the middle of a slam and let their poets despair when they’re losing, and that’s crushing for a team.
(SIDE NOTE: So in a way, a poetry slam is almost like a rap competition?) I saw on the Indiana University website that you’ve never seen the ocean. Is this true, an,d if it is, I suggest you go as fast as you can to the ocean.
Haha, yeah, it’s true—for now. I’m planning on seeing the Atlantic over Thanksgiving Break, and then maybe the Pacific over Spring Break. But I’m a Midwesterner through-and-through.
What are some projects that you are currently working on? I’m actually working on a book-length poem about the ocean, about not having seen it—the ocean sort of takes on this metaphorical weight, for me, and I suspect that going to see it will be a religious experience, so I’m trying to put that journey on the page.
Besides writing, what do you spend your days doing?
Reading.
I play pool, hang out at bars, make “that’s what she said” jokes a lot. I’m envious of the kinds of folks who have multiple talents and interests—poets who can also paint, musicians who are also photographers. I’m kind of a one-track guy.
If someone could walk in your front door in five minutes who would you want it to be and why?
I don’t know, I’m not really a celebrity / historical figure kind of person. I miss my best friends back home. I miss a pitbull my friends and I used to live with, named Snoop. It’d be great to see them.
(That’s what she said)
What is your connection between page poetry and spoken word? Do you feel an inner-nagging to perform, or did you stumble upon it and like it?
Beyond the fact that I wanted to be a rapper, I never really had any interest in performing. I had stage fright. I sucked at it for a long time. But it was also a huge adrenaline rush to get onstage, and over time, I grew to love it. I teach college classes now, and it’s the same thing—it’s like getting 50 minutes of stage time three days a week. In terms of poetics, I think there’s a big difference between things I write for performance and things I write for the page, though I’m always thinking about music and rhythm and sound. Where is the strangest place you’ve performed?
Back before I quit rapping, me and some buddies played a show in this barn-party up North in Minnesota. The band before us was a death metal group who wore gas masks while performing. It was super uncomfortable.
Do you have any pre-performance rituals?
I fast the day of poetry slams or big performances. I started at the College National Poetry Slam in 2009—it was during Lent, I think, on a Friday, so I was already fasting, and we did well at the slam, so I figured that it brought my team great spiritual power. Robert Hass writes: “Emptiness / is strict; that pleases me.” I like that. What is a typical day-in-the-life of Michael Mlekoday like? I wake up earlier than I’d like in order to teach or go to class, I pop over to the Indiana Review office and play rap music while everybody else is busy, read poems, write, sometimes go out to the bars.
Where did you get your awesome glasses?
Man, the more important question is: where did I LOSE my awesome glasses!? I don’t have them any more, and I can’t find the same ones anywhere.
Where do you see your writing career going in the next 5 years? Where would you like it to go?
Hopefully I keep learning new things, keep growing, keep removing myself from my own aesthetic comfort zone. My first book, The Dead Eat Everything, is coming out in about a year, so I’ll probably make a point of getting out and doing more readings, which is always fun.
If you could sleep with any character from any book who would it be and why?
Ha, great question! I mostly only read contemporary poetry, so that makes the question sort of awkward—like, um, the speaker from Famous Poet K’s poems? (Yes, I had a real name there, but deleted it.)
