chelsey minnis poem & interview
Can you type a dialogue you've had in real life that you remember and liked?Sad-OMy sadness feels like heavy earrings that makes my head ache.
Someday I would like to spend too much money on a shag rug so that I could lie
down upon it and not smell one scent from my childhood.
When I'm about to get angry, that's when I start to feel good...
I stare out the window, unprincipled as a tiger...
If anyone tries to comfort me I will vomit on the balustrade.
If anyone asks me why I'm like this I will say "im gon tu kil u!!!"
As a child I totally squandered my love on my parents and was, as a result,
crucified on a cross†.
I will spit out my food if anyone tries to imply anything...
Sometimes an arrow starts to come out of my head like I'm bored → I'm bored →
And then another arrow comes out like I want to read a book ↑ I want to read a
book ↑
I try to stay bored for a while but then I start to become amused...
I want to put makeup on people's eyes so they can look like damned darlings...
People keep talking...But it is hard to stop them when I only want to be petted...
I can barely listen to what they're talking about. They're talking about someone
who wants them...
Can you type a dialogue you've had in real life that you remember and disliked?Man (walking in door): “Baby?”
Woman (sitting on couch watching tv): “Baby?”
Woman (getting up off couch) “Baby!”
Man: “Baby!”
Was that before your reading at NYU a few weeks ago? How was that reading?Cab Driver: “Where are you going?
Woman: “58 W. 10th st”
Cab Driver: Silence
Cab Driver “What are the cross streets?”
Woman: “Oh, um, I don’t know? Um, I think they’re 10th and Greenwich
Ave.”
Cab Driver: “Where are you going?”
Woman: “It’s NYU…it’s ..”
Cab Driver: (interrupting) “I don’t know where that is”
Woman: “oh...”
Cab Driver: (interrupting) “I need the cross streets. I don’t know
where that is.”
Woman: “Oh I have the directions right here…” (hands over printout of
directions)
Cab Driver: “What is that? No. that doesn’t help. That doesn’t help me.
See, I don’t want that. I don’t know…” (on and on berating the woman)
Woman: (getting pissed) “Uh…”
I see on the Internet that you read with Michael Earl Craig. How was that reading?Yes. I think the reading was enjoyable. At the end there were questions from the audience and I felt very embarrassed because I started to talk about how I want to quit poetry and how I’m so sick of it—and everyone in the audience looked aghast and discouraged*. Then a couple of the other poets who were also reading said “But, we like poetry!” and I suddenly realized I had been creating a powerful negative vortex and I was sorry for it, so I tried to recover and nod my head and act as though I too, enjoyed “the life of the imagination” or whatever the heck they were talking about.
*I don't think everyone was aghast and discouraged because "I, Chelsey Minnis" wanted to quit poetry but because most of them were graduate students in poetry and had such hopefulness for themselves and their poetry...and they didn't need to see someone ragging it out...
When people Google your name they will get to this post now, I think. What do you want people who are Googling your name after reading your poetry to know about you? Or to know about anything, even if it’s not about you? Can you type that here?I felt like there was a “death valley” in the middle of my reading-but I hadn’t done any readings for a long time and I was pretty nervous. There was someone in the audience who actually called out a “request’ for Michael Earl Craig to read a certain poem! (They were like, “Read the “waffler” poem!). I was like, “he totally planted that person in the audience.”
Chelsey Minnis is the author of BAD BAD (Fence, 2007) and ZIRCONIA (Fence, 2001). Read her here, here, here. Wave Books will publish her next book, POEMLAND, in 2009.Oh, I don’t really want them to know anything about me or anything about anything, I guess! I know it’s very pessimistic but I assume that when people are googling your name it’s because they never liked you and they want to make fun of you by seeing what misguided things you’ve been doing to try to promote yourself.
4:14 PM
9 Comments:
i think chelsey should be allowed to quit poetry if she desires. and nobody should be yelling at her for it because it takes more courage to stop something than it does to be bored while doing it.
tell her to pay me $500 and I will help her quit poetry
here is a client testimonials of my services:
"I called ryan after my one-hundreth publication. I wanted leave poetry 'on top' but didn't think I was capable of leaving on my own. ryan was very persuasive, and eventually broke my wrist in three places and put me in a wheelchair. I am no longer writing or reading poetry and I couldn't be happier."
"some offer this service for $100 or $50 or even $5 dollars. but you get what you pay for in life. ryan will fuck you up, poetically, and you'll quit cooooooold turkey"
" excellent customer service. excellent excellent excellent"
"ryan is so good at what he does, I married him after he helped me quit poetry. thank you snookums"
i now love chelsey minnis.
thank you.
i love chelsey minnis too. she's exciting. her ne'er do well-wishing bad attitude inspires me to an irrational hope. i like that when i google her name there is almost nothing there but the books and this then reconfirms everything that i find exciting about her work. i'm not sure if i believe in chelsey minnis entirely, but i really want to. i wish i had a thousand dollars that i could anonymously send her if it helped her to keep writing. but i would understand if she quit. i wish i had a thousand dollars anyway.
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i like the poem, and the interview. a good post.
Tao, I like your reading of "Sad-O" on Weird Deer. I like Chelsey Minnis.
I guess this interview is old but Minnis certainly didn't quit. Her new book Poemland is coming out from Wave Books.
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