Dear Strawberries,
Hello! Real quick:
If you still haven’t received the chapbook(s) you ordered, please reply to this email with a) your mailing address, and b) the # of copies you ordered (if you haven’t sent me that info already).
Major thanks to Mandy Shunnarah-Reed (@offthebeatenshelf), a Columbus-based author, writer, and bookstagrammer for featuring The Funny Thing About A Panic Attack! And thanks to everyone who’s snagged a copy from Gramercy Books in Bexley (they’ll still have a few copies left)!
Poetry: “A Deeper Dive, A Delicious Donut”
Ok! So in last week’s newsletter, I introduced a new format where, instead of merely celebrating (and ugh, promoting) the chapbook, I posed some questions and offered some new ways of looking at poems in the first half of the chapbook.
Was it interesting and illuminating and fun? Or did it feel like being in an English class you never wanted to take? Let me know! (Seriously, feel free to let me know!) I’ll take your silence to mean, “Idk, just do whatever you want.”
So…let’s jump in for another round of questions/hints on the poems in what I’m calling “A Deeper Dive…” (as in, looking more closely at the work – and in reference to the cover of the book), “...A Delicious Donut” (in reference to the cover of the book – and because I friggin’ love donuts).
Try this (ya know, if you want): Pick one poem in the second half of the chapbook (starting with “The Tooth Fairy”), and see if the prompts below deepen or complicate your reading.
“The Tooth Fairy”: What did losing a tooth mean to you as a child – or mean to your children? Was the experience exhilarating, anxiety-inducing, or perhaps some combination? Why can rites of passage bring on so many strong/mixed emotions, and how do those feelings show up in the poem?
“Brent”: In the poem, the speaker reinvents himself as “Brent.” Where else in the chapbook does the speaker seek to escape himself and become someone else? Are there times/ways in your life you try to become – even temporarily – someone (or something) else?
“Timelapse”: I’ll be honest: this poem is kind of a mystery to me…and – what da heck?? – I’m the one who wrote it! Hint: In this poem, the speaker wishes for death: “Timelapse my body til it’s a garden” = Fast forward time until my buried corpse blooms into a garden above ground. “Fast forward this tape til I’m a candy wrapper on the phone / and salt & pepper static on the screen”: Imagine fast forwarding a VHS tape all the way ‘til the end – all you hear is static, and all you see is black and white on the screen; as in, speed up my life until I’m nothing. Then, with that in mind…try reading the poem again? (Or just skip it! Who cares! Not me!) (But I still love this poem.)
“Elegy For Jimmy”: To consider: In “Timelapse,” the speaker wishes for death (“Timelapse my body ‘til it’s a garden”). In “Elegy For Jimmy,” the speaker – as a teeanger – imagines death (“I figure that’s how death feels”) while his friend actually dies (“and only one of us knows if I’m right”). And in “Deep Sea Donuts,” the speaker fantasizes about death (as he “dreams of ways not to wake up”) but ultimately decides he’d rather live than drown (“because they don’t have bear claws at the bottom of the sea”). Thanks, donuts!
“Deep Sea Donuts”: How does this poem relate to the cover of the chapbook? On the cover, is the donut floating, sinking, or…perhaps…re: “Brent” – “hovering three to five inches off the ground”?
“Self-Portrait As Anyone I’m Not”: Hint: When I write “a one-cat heist meandering my way through a laser maze,” I am 100% imagining this iconic scene from Ocean’s 12 (a GOOD movie, definitely not as good as Ocean’s 11 but definitely MUCH better than Ocean’s 12 – don’t @ me), except with one single cat easily walking to the other size and stealing the multi-million dollar Fabergé Egg or whatever.
“I Wish You Superblooms”: How does the first poem (“Double Double”) speak to the last lines of this poem (“exponential,” “multiplying the zeroes”). Hint: MATH!!!
Ok! Was that fun for you? Was it fun for me? Jury’s out! We’ll see what happens next week.
With love and thanks and quick maths,
Ben