This Week's Writing 11/3/23

My poetry chapbook is out! And it's my one year anniversary on substack.

A year ago Gusgus wasn’t even a thing. Now look at him!

This week was the anniversary of my first year on substack! Pretty cool. Thanks again to all of you who have signed up to read and support me. If you’re not a paid subscriber, consider becoming one so I can keep writing here!

If you read one thing by me this week read:

My chapbook, Send $19.99 for Supplements and Freedom is available! (above/ground press)

The chapbook is a collection of collages and word garble I’ve written over the last…25 years? There’s a pantoum based on Joe Rogan transcripts and a double-sestina based on Jordan Peterson’s manly writing.

Here’s what one distinguished reader said about the book!

Reading Send $19.99 for Supplements and Freedom is like exploring an abandoned house. The bones of the original peak through the collapses that have occurred when no one was looking. Noah Berlatsky’s poems feel like what one could imagine long-forgotten websites and tweets evolve into after being left to their own devices. Through n+1 wordplay and remixing of found phrases, this collection arrives at something both alien and deeply humane. A call from inside the haunted house of culture in the early 21st century.

—Michael J. Wilson, author of If Any Gods Lived (Stalking Horse Press)

So, hopefully that sounds appealing.

To order! You have options! I have chapbooks, so you can reach out to me, myname at gmail dot com. $6 should cover zine and postage in the US. Or I’m willing to do trades and such; make me an offer!

You can also order them from rob at above/ground press:

send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Politics

The Christofascism of Mike Johnson. (Public Notice)

Should intent be central to the definition of genocide? (EIH)

The GOP’s war on budgeting is also a war on democracy. (EIH)

Cultural Criticism

Valerie June turns all music into old time folk. (Chicago Reader)

Rustin is a Hollywood biopic that makes the Civil Rights Movement look (too) easy. (Chicago Reader)

Fingernails, an odd romcom where love involves having your fingernails pulled out. (Chicago Reader)

When Evil Lurks makes evil smart. Too smart. (EIH)

Poetry

rob mclennan interviewed me about my poetry(!) (Touch the Donkey blog)

A poem about failing to get a pushcart prize. (Synchronized Chaos)

Too Late

I have not been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
I have not been nominated for Best of the Net.
I am not an American Book Award.
I am not a MacArthur Grant.
I still haven’t been nominated for Best of the Net.
No Pulitzer. No Ruth Lilly. No Robert Frost medal.
No Pushcart Prize. No Pushcart Prize.
I do not teach. I have no residency.
I have not won the award you have not heard of.
When I write my poem on paper
the paper’s value plummets.
The paper is useless garbage.
I am a font of useless garbage.
My arms twist like twisting things, my legs twist
like twisting things.
My head tips back, my mouth opens
and useless garbage pours out.
It will drown the world.
They will give me a prize to stop.
A special prize for stopping the poetry.
But it is too late.