Banango Lit

BY: KATEY METCALF

This is the first poem in Lilyyy Dawn’s recent chapbook “Age of Aquariums.” I considered trying to describe the aesthetic, but this is a situation where the picture does a better job than I ever could. From here on imagine all quotes in fishbowls. That last sentence was a highlight in my internet writing career.

So anyway. I first read “Aquariums” last month, and had planned on writing something about it then. But this and that came up, academics, disasters, the whole usual college deal. As a result I’ve revisited it regularly without ever actually doing anything about it. But it’s been on my mind.

Now, as every time I look at it, I read the first six poems and get annoyed. It’s rare for me annoyed by literature, but it’s not necessarily a sign of fault; closer, I would say, to an irritating abrasiveness. Her second poem reads “If you were born in the 90s, you should have lost your virginity by now.” I could level an intellectual argument here, but it’s not worth it. I don’t think Dawn’s speaker really means it. And yet the only thing I can think about it is: come the fuck on.

 “Video games where you kill people are stupid. Let’s all play Mario Kart 64 instead :)” reminds me passingly of Steve Roggenbuck’s eminently friendly “boosting.” However, where Roggenbuck has a fairly nuanced sense of purpose behind his jokingly sweet style, I struggle to find a sense of meaning in this poem. Like so many of the others in this collection (notably: “I’M A HUSTLER FUCK YOU GUYS” and “We don’t need a condom, baby, I’m on birth control”) it just strikes me as empty. Framing in a fishbowl does nothing to change that.

I’ve responded to some individual poems; now let me respond to the chapbook as a whole. As is the casual norm in the flarf community, “Aquariums” is written entirely in first person: in this respect it feels like I’m having a one-sided conversation with that sex-obsessed girl on the internet dimly expressing her general incompleteness as a person. You know the sort. At the beginning she states “I need to start doing things with my life but I just want you to make me a sandwich[,]” and nine poems later is “still waiting for that sandwich. And: “It’s not pronounced ‘sammich.’” This feeling is redoubled by the fact that, were this a real conversation, it would still be one-sided. I would have nothing to say to this person.

And this brings up what, for me, is the real question of “Aquariums”: is it possible to write engaging poetry through the voice of an unobservant and largely uninteresting person? The answer I draw from this is no. This is not to say “Age of Aquariums” is a bad collection… it’s merely dull. Like many an empty-chatter internet friend, Dawn’s speaker does get in a few emotional punches, my favorites being “A type of loneliness which can only be stifled by internet shopping” and “SHOULD I LEAVE MY HOUSE TODAY?” But after that there’s not a lot to think, or say.

So, my response to this conversation, and this chapbook, is:

…

okay.

I didn’t read this aloud like Ana asked on the first page, and it felt so much more personal that way. It felt like reading a confused Facebook narration from a college boyfriend—someone struggling to get along, get by, be loved in a meaningful way by someone who matters. Needless to say, I liked it a lot.

This is not to say I think Ana Carrete is a great poet, or even a good one. But what “pinky promise me this” lacked in fluidity and strength it makes up for tenfold in emotion, honesty, feel. As far as I can tell, feel is what this poem is about, how it feels to be in an okay relationship and still be struggling with what you want. How you get distracted day to day, thinking about Mariah Carey, a hundred other things. How it always comes back around to love.

But what Carrete forgets is that the day-to-day thoughts of an average person are almost entirely boring, at least to the outside observer. “pinky promise me this” is full of funny colored fonts and weird spacings and some funky mirroring I don’t even know, all drawing attention to meaningless little things. At first it was charming, highlighting “like” at every repetition, a funny testament to the idiosyncrasies of conversational English—but by the end I was annoyed.  Youtube links in a poem throw off my groove; repetition of meaningless song lyrics is just another thing to skim over.  As much as I appreciate the mundane this was just a little bit too much.

And yet and yet and yet. Despite these flaws (and they are sizeable!) by the end of “pinky promise” I felt a little floored, a little in love. Carrete is careful to not identify her lover in the first half; in the second she seeks the love of the universal “you.” I feel like she’s just bared her frustrations to me and then asked if I love her—the answer is yes, no, ask me again tomorrow after I’ve slept. Ana, you’re charming, but I still don’t know what to make of you.

Always in my life I’m on the lookout for lines, strings of words that jump out and grab me by my hair. And despite its flaws “pinky promise” has one so simple and so perfect that it sticks.

“thank you for loving me in your dream / i’m sure i loved you back”

So, go read this, you can find it here. Maybe read it aloud. Maybe turn on Anatomy of Frank and shout over it. See if it makes you feel better, more honest. Tell me if it does.

Please welcome Katey Metcalf to the Banango family. Here she reviews Chokeville by Joshua Allen. Chokeville is available in its entirety here.

The problem is, I’m not sure if he’s joking or not. Chokeville, the long-awaited and still incomplete novel from copy-writer-by-day, American-absurdist-blogger-by-night Joshua Allen is a funny, clever, bewildering series of tales about Allison Hull. Upon her twin brother’s mysterious death she receives a telegram from Feddema Global, a “courier company” that deals in moving sensitive materials, looking for a special sort of person to replace him. Because it seems interesting and because she has nothing better to do, Allison says “ok, god, fine,” and joins up.

Chokeville is both laughably ridiculous and heartbreakingly eloquent, in true Joshua Allen style: the style is hard to describe in words. A teenage boy who plays a lot of COD but also loves Salvador Dali? Lorca, reborn as a sullen Rutgers freshman? “The Venture Bros”? The characters are irreverent, but serious:

Allison coughs and coughs until she thinks she’s going to throw up, then stands back up and takes another deep drag. “So nice of you to say,” she wheezes. She spies something that looks close enough to an ashtray and stubs out the cigarette.
“Hugo told me that after their passing, you and he became estranged.”
“Yeah he used the cunt word,” Allison says.

The writing is full of gems like this (my favorite being “What am I wearing? Nary but a monocle—it is Thursday.”) But despite all of this puerile fucking-around, Joshua Allen does have something to say, something real, and memorable, and startlingly astute. In one of the first few vignettes we see Allison’s tattoo sleeve (something I picture as really bitchin’)—the language is both absurd and beautiful.

“God damn her arms are on fire. She told that sketchy ex-con militia tattooist nutjob — only a couple days ago but it felt like forever — that she wanted the ocean with her wherever she went. She was convinced she’d never see it again. She wanted to be able to raise her arms and tear a hole in whatever dead prairie or landlocked suburb she found herself in, revealing the churning sea that flowed beneath it all.”

When I say that I like Chokeville, I mostly mean that I like it despite itself. It’s self-consciously terrible in a way that makes me love and hate Joshua Allen with a fiery passion, which I suppose is what he intended. I hate that there is a ridiculously absurd ship full of whores. I hate that there are giant spiders and a character named Hogwild. And yet I’ve read it all three times, and I’m mad that it’s incomplete—spitting mad. I want to punch J. Allen and then kiss him passionately, violently, angrily. I want to give myself Allison’s tattoo with India ink and a rusty needle.

All of this is to say: read Chokeville. You might not like it but you will certainly have feelings about it, which is more than I can say for most things in this day and age.