Friday Links: Let's Read Some Poems Edition
"...I walked in the boot prints everyone made who walked the walk to Overtown...That was another thing the rez didn't have: a methadone clinic."- Morgan Talty, "Burn"
Been thinking of doing one of these “Lit Mag Roundup” ones for a while. Let’s dive in! It’s Labor Day Weekend! But first, ohhhh baby, we got a killer collection of short stories this week.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that sounds like a horror book, but is not. Although some truly terrifying things do happen. If you’re a new parent, the last story comes with an even bigger “be prepared and take care of yourself” TW than Victor LaValle’s The Changeling. But it’s very good, every time I say I’m done reading short story collections, I pick up something from Tin House like Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters Of The 21st Century (also not a horror collection) or Joy Williams’s 99 Stories of God and get excited about short stories all over again. This book absolutely got me excited about short stories. I’m talking, of course, about Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty.
Here is a collection of really well-crafted stories. We’re following the same narrator, David, and we’re non-linear. He’s a kid meeting his stepdad for the first time, he’s an adult standing in line at a methadone clinic, he’s a teenager who doesn’t want to sit around the fire while his mom and stepdad drink, he’s an adult who has to help his friend who passed out in the frozen snow. His older sister comes in and out with her problems, his friends are different people when he’s a kid than when he’s an adult, without much explanation (though you can guess any number of possibilities). It’s like if the stories in Jesus’ Son were the length of latter-day Raymond Carver, with even more of dry/gallows sense of humor than those two writers. I really, really enjoy story collections with the same first-person narrator. This one especially felt like a novel, without being confined to the trite constraints of a typical bildungsroman. Each story is completely engrossing—I read half this book during a seven-hour flight delay at an airport and didn’t get mad at the plane once (shoutout to my kid for being calm that whole time, too). And because I got to get to know David through these disparate snapshots rather than a tight narrative, it feels less and less like there’s an answer for the problems David is facing, less and less like there’s a goal to reach for, other than continued existence because you can’t do otherwise—something that feels real, and close, and satisfying as a reader.
Because let’s be clear: this is not a portrait of something who has their shit together. This is a person who, when caught stealing his mother’s cigarettes, is met with his mom supplying him cigarettes. And I didn’t even think “bad mom behavior!” If anything, it seemed like a non-hypocritical, more peaceful way to handle that challenge. Of course, it doesn’t stop David from going down the path that leads to being hooked on methadone for years. We see David crash his friends’ car in a fit of stress/grief/frustration, and we don’t see the fallout on the page—but things do kinda get worse from there. This narrative arc has no upward trajectory, it has no redemption, but it does have a very real-feeling portrait of a family. And not “real” in the Prestige TV way of meaning “suffering.” Although there is suffering. Idk. I’m writing in circles. Like I mentioned, I’m lately not the most excited about short story collections (even though I’m writing two lol), but this is a really goddamn good collection of short stories. And you can syllabus it together with Jesus’ Son.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Look, I’m not hard to please, but I have good taste. That’s true of you, too, reading this blog. You and me? All we need is a really good instrumental band doing MF DOOM covers. We’ve listened to DOMi & JD BECK, we’ve listened to OMA. Now let’s jam New Jazz Underground. This might be my favorite one yet.
Bonus link up top: I got a short story published! Forgot to put it on last week’s LINKS because we were traveling. The Wrong Turners of
were kind enough to publish “The City Installed Red Light Cameras,” a short story that’s totally not a parable about seemingly benevolent technology being used to prey on the most vulnerable, so please don’t read it that way. I’m a cool writer.Bonus link up top: NEW THE LINE BREAK PODCAST!
and I are celebrating Ghost City Press’s summer micro-chapbook series. You can read all the books for $pay,what,you.want here. Bob reads from Eating Out Anne Sexton by Elena Sichrovsky and AI Fever by Paddy Qiu, I read from Poems by Tom Snarsky and Every Path Leads To The Sea by Erinola E. Daranijo. Apple | Spotify | Soundcloud | Also Bob’s blog about our friend Diannely Antigua’s Good Monster is real good
“is it time to read poems yet” yes Homer it is time to read poems (credit: Wikimedia Commons, British Museum)
Asa Delaney, “For Poppy” in Apparition Lit - this one’s got some violence! Great pulpy middle stanza.
S Yarberry, “TRANS IS LATIN FOR ACROSS.” in Sixth Finch - been getting into S ever since Bob read them on The Line Break podcast (Apple | Spotify | Soundcloud). Banger last line.
Kyla Houboult, two poems in Moist Poetry Journal - opening two lines were enough to hook me. Aren’t we all related to moss, at least a little?
Amy DeBellis, “Astronomy” in Bending Genres - I feel bad for those astronauts stuck in space because of Boeing. But because of pieces like this and Chloe N. Clark’s Patterns of Orbit, I feel worse for the loved ones languishing at home.
Sandra Marchetti, “Apollo” in Action, Spectacle - love a long-but-short-lined poem, love an ambiguous sex poem, love tercets.
What’re you still doing here? Did you see the cool graphic Wrong Turn gave my story?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Remember, Monday’s holiday is about you, even though I bet you don’t get it off. I certainly didn’t when I had these kinds of jobs. Be kind to yourself, be kind to your friends who don’t have their shit together, take solace in art and nature and weed, and make that cash.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
I loved NotLR