AM I THE MEAT????????????

She might be the babe beside me, but she's also one mighty terrific poet. I mean, Layne Ransom. Before the girlfriend was the best pal and the coworker and the classmate and the girl at the martini bar shouting about slugs. I'm here about her new (first! congrats! yes!) chapbook from H_NGM_N Books called You Are The Meat. Sure sure I could be risking an elbow (or worse!) saying anything sillybad about this book, but mainly I'd just be sillywrong. I'm being srsly(asmuchasispossible)honest here!

Here I go. Here I go. Boyfriend and poetry fan and Layne fan and superpal all chattering as one messy flung ball. First thing you gotta notice, first poem, first ending, first time you get to take a breath and scroll on: "Don’t reason/with a plane crash/clean up the fucking bodies." Layne is scared, but isn't scared to shout out of these poems, EVERYTHING SHE SEES. It's beautiful and daring and feels like late night walks we take. A little drunk and a little worried and a lot in awe of the Past, Present, and Future. "When will Jesus Christ fulfill my sexual desires?" That's life, right? Waiting for saviors, and getting stood up by saviors, and (failing at) being our own saviors, and realizing our saviors were here the whole fucking time, in a homemade hat holding a chocolate bar. "If I could slap a title on this moment/it’d be EVERYONE I LOVE IS HERE" This thing is full of good titles ("How Was Your Day?" and "Little Methods" to name TWO) and good lines (you get it yet?), but most WOW is the straight up stumbling-down-the-railroad-tracks oomph of these poems, this whole meatwad. It goes zoom: "then my eyes explode/out of my skull with blood and multi-colored/magnet letters spelling words like “faith,”/“love,” and “beauty.”/you rearrange them into phrases like/“you evil fatty” and “voila, beef hat!” But golly geesh golly, what reminders we get throughout, of being loved/possessed, "If I could take you where I’m going/I would take you," of the way it is (but keep going!), "If I ruled the world, everything/would turn out just as awful," of The Necessary Parts, "Your first something is holy. Have a sandwich. Keep moving constantly, firing and firing out."

TGOB At AWP

AWP has become an excuse for me to see a big hunk of my writer pals in one place, get super-clocked by awesome readingparties, and wander around and stare at books.

As the AWP rowdy life goes, awesome things overlap and undercut and AHHHH. Here are the off-site readings I'm most stoked for this AWP (and will go to if the world is Nice):

Thursday
Table X Reading with Ashley Farmer, Tadd Adcox, Aaron Teel, and more!

12 Good Readers featuring Abraham Smith (FINALLY), Heather Christle, Ben Hersey, Scott McClanahan, and 8 more!

Their Peculiar Ambitions: A Night of  Presidential Fiction Readings with Sal Pane, J.A. Tyler, Matt Bell, and many more!

Ink Node Reading featuring Wendy Xu, Zachary Schomburg, Nick Sturm, Adam Fell, and more! 

Friday
Sixth Finch and Vinyl Poetry with Matthew Lippmann, Emily Toder, Dan Magers, and more!

I'm So Tired with Ben Kopel, Carina Finn, Matt Hart, and more!

LIT PARTY with Scott McClanahan, Mike Young playing music,  and more!

Saturday
There's Still Good In You with Jordaan Mason, Gabriel Blackwell, Amber Sparks, Adam Robinson, and more!

Six Party Talk with Layne Ransom, Dean Young, Caroline Cabrera, Bob Hicok, and more!

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I'll also be helping Mike with the Magic Helicopter table at the book fair during the day. Come visit, pick up the new issue of Noo Journal or the second edition of The Drunk Sonnets, and be our pal!

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I'm sure I'm missing stuff. What stuff am I missing? Tell me what I'll be missing! Still figuring out what panels I'll be going to.

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STAY STOKED AT AWP

HERE COMES THE BOOM

Custom Star Destroyer from Layne for Valentine's Day

Notes To A Young Poet

I'm so stoked to have my Notes To A Young Poet included over at H_NGM_N, wonderful press and friends to me. It's hanging out with awesome stuff by Matt Hart, Alexis Orgera, Adam Fell and more! Thanks to Sarah Certa, Nate Pritts, and everyone else under that umbrella that asked me to be a part of this.

Here's a little blip of what I said:

Ninth part, young poet, write what you know is only part of the story. The other part is about the hot air balloon crash, and oh boy, is that sad. Still, you shouldn’t be afraid to cry on Dave’s shoulder, or wiggle (hooray!) on Maggie’s couch when she returns to the door, or fall asleep next to Laura and her dog because life is exhausting.

Next Big Thing

My dear former professor and friend in poetry (and disc golf!) Mark Neely (his newest book, Beast of the Hill, is sooooo awesome) was tagged for “The Next Big Thing,” a self-interview for writers with recent or forthcoming books. Then Mark tagged me to answer some questions about my next chapbook.

What is the working title of the book?

48 Pornos

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was writing this whole series of short prose poems/monologues that all started "Get this:..." and a bunch of them ended up being porno-esque, so I jogged around with that. I wrote nearly 400 of the "Get this:" pieces, 150(ish) of which ended up being "pornos." 48 of them seem to "twinkle" enough to fit into this mss.

What genre does your book fall under?

Pornos!

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Depending on the "porno," of course, but some good fits would be: James Deen, a Garth Brooks look-a-like, Lisa Ann, some guy that owns a lighning bolt costume, and Lethal Lipps. Oh and the Statue of Liberty would play herself.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

It's me pitching a bunch of porno ideas to an experimental, up-and-coming director.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote the whole "Get this:" series in the course of a couple months, then I cut it down to about 200 over the course of a couple weeks, then I pulled out the "pornos," and worked on/added more of those for another couple of weeks. All in all, let's say 3-4 months?

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

First stage: The "Get this" series started as a Twitter series. People seemed to like them.
Second stage: I saw a contest advertised on The Rumpus for writing pornos. I started texting ideas to my girlfriend, Layne.
Third stage: I sent a few to my movie-making (not of the porno variety...YET) friend Dave, and he was super stoked about them.
Fourth stage: As I started getting more and more of them, I kept thinking of Safety Third Enterprises. Leader of that pack Matt is a fearless dude, totally into whatever literature gets him psyched, no rules. I knew of only one place I wanted to send it.
Fifth stage: Matt got psyched on the book!

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

STE will turn this thing in a totally beautiful object. The cover will be silk-screened. The pages will be mighty crisp. The whole thing will be wrapped up like a present. Oh and there will be a postcard of me naked (censored a bit, of course, sorry) taped to the front. 

Here's an example porno:

Get this: A milf rubs two dildos together and nothing happens. The video lasts for over an hour.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Safety Third Enterprises is gonna textually broadcast this thing out in August.

My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:

Layne Ransom

Jayne O'Connor 

Dave Mcdermand