T.C. Boyle, “On So-Called ‘Metamodernism’” by Seth Abramson
“{808}{snare}{cello}
{808}{snare}poetry can deliver a counterpoint”
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Recently, a student (I won’t use her real name) came to my office for a regularly scheduled appointment. Even after having taught for so many years, I felt a little anxious about this particular meeting, the reason being that this student had just handed in what I considered a very disappointing piece of work. It was poetry, too, which obviously isn’t my home genre—though I certainly know enough. Even now I’d be hard-pressed to describe exactly what this student had produced, except to say that I disliked it intensely. The language was glossy and insubstantial in the same way the nightly news is, or I guess maybe the nightly news if you get it online rather than via one of the major broadcast or cable networks. And there was no sense of distance whatsoever between the author and the text, as though the poetry was processing information being fed to its author in real-time. Obviously I’ve seen this sort of thing before; anyone who teaches creative writing to undergraduates has. But it’s usually a poem
{violin}
about some concert the student attended, or an art show, or a fraternity or sorority party, or a family trip, or whatever. This wasn’t anything like that, and the language wasn’t anything like you’d expect in a poem that synthesizes (or merely reproduces) an experience immediately after the fact. The language felt oddly constrained, in the sense that it felt both natural and unnatural at the same time. At ease with itself and decidedly not. There were some very good parts, I suppose, but then also some very bad ones, which of course always calls into question whether the good parts were merely fortuitous—as we can safely assume the bad ones were accidental. And the tone was indecipherable. I sensed that this student (let’s call her “Sheila”) had been consuming some sort of traumatizing language recently, and instead of getting the time and distance we always think of as essential to both poetry and fiction, instead of taking the time to get anything right, she’d decided to do away with the longstanding dichotomy between the language of art and the language of information and create this unholy hodgepodge of the two. Which meant there were moments of elevated language sitting alongside some really sloppy, loose talk about abstract ideas; prosaic language alongside some obviously concept-driven blips and beeps; a clear narrative coupled with textual chaos that was nearly impossible to process and even more difficult to take seriously. Parts of it were actually—I don’t know if this is the word I want, but here it is—irresponsible. There was angry speech alongside anxiously compassionate lines; phrases that were discernibly childish leading into languid yet high-spirited ones that ticked several of the boxes we associate with immaculate craft. I mean it was just all over. So I wasn’t looking forward to talking with Sheila because what am I going to say? This is a mess and needs to be tossed? You’re not justifying your teaching assistantship? I question your motives? I’m certain this was rushed? You’re not putting the sort of pressure on language we’d expect from a professional
{violin}{snare}
artist? I heard her footfalls in the hallway before I heard the knock on my office door, which I remember only because it’s an odd thing to remember and not something I normally would. But it was like, on this particular day, this was a student who was “walking heavy.” And when I opened my door to invite her in she looked heavy, too. I mean, like, in the spiritual sense. Something was weighing heavily on her. So I thought to myself that this conference already had a ready opening, given as how, you know, she clearly wanted to unburden herself, which was fine by me, both because I didn’t know yet what I was going to say to her, and because this had, like, historically been a strong enough student—one of my best, actually—so I figured she had the chops to lead our conversation down the road it needed to go.
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
So this is what she said to me, and of course I’m paraphrasing. She didn’t say exactly this, and she didn’t say it as well as I’ll say it now, but the ideas are the same, you know, and with some time and reflection (and an hour on Google) I’ve been able to connect the dots well enough, I think. So, like, this is what Sheena said: “Professor Boyle, I know what I handed in looks like a mess. I think it’s because, like, my head is a little bit messy right now. Not emotionally—I mean, about my writing. Alice [this is another student and another nom de plume here] and I were talking about some things after class last week and she told me that she’d read a paper from the David Foster Wallace conference in New Mexico last year. Someone there was calling David Foster Wallace a ‘metamodern’ writer. So Alice thought, you know, why don’t we look this up online? Because she really likes DFW. Especially his essays. I wasn’t very interested because I don’t believe in ‘-isms,’ because fiction really isn’t my home genre though I know it well enough, because I don’t like theory or whatever, and because I really didn’t come here to get ‘academic’ about my poetry or develop some sort of ‘poetics’ or whatever, just to figure out how to write well. But then it felt like Alice was making some interesting points about, you know, Art, and—I don’t know. I felt like Alice had been walking pretty heavy for a while—does that make sense?—so I was inclined to hear her out. And so I did. And then things got muddled for me.”
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This is where a good professor would’ve interjected in some way to direct the discussion. Asked questions, maybe dropped some passive-aggressive hint—“I’ve never heard the term ‘metamodernism’ before, Cynthia, so...”—as a way of steering the conversation back to anything productive. But it was a Tuesday, and I’m not much on Tuesdays. So I just told her to go on. And she said something like (same apologies as above) this: “Alice was asking why poems need to have a consistent tone. She was asking, like, why we need to have this distance or whatever from whatever we write. Why can’t some lines just be bad—by design—not to be funny or expose the infirmities of language or whatever but because sometimes poets are bad at what they do, and sometimes humans are bad at being human, and sometimes you want to leave a reader guessing about what was intentional and what wasn’t, what could be helped and what couldn’t be, you know? Why can’t the fact that we’ve all come through eighty years of postmodernism still wanting to feel human, still wanting despite all we’ve learned about self and language, show up in our work as an earnest badness or other sort of tasteless transgression? Why [and here she used Mark Strand as an example] can’t we write things that scare people, or make people angry, or that are [she probably didn’t put it this way] dishonest?” “‘Dishonest’ how?” I asked her, fixing my attention on that word in particular. “Well, okay, why can’t you, you know, try to convince people, in really clear and transparent language, that a lie isn’t a lie? Given that that’s the sort of experience we all have when we watch television, movies, Internet porn? Why can’t a poem exhibit the same lack of focus social media does? The same plasticity, coupled with an occasional solemnity and even profundity? Why can’t we misappropriate language instead of just appropriate it? Reappropriate it instead of transcribing it? Mistranscribe it instead of juxtaposing it? Unjuxtapose it but keep it emotionally unprocessable? Process it instead of craft it? Why can’t you try to unsettle readers? Have an effect? Have that effect be ambiguous? Not just ventriloquize but write as, say, anything or anyone, like John Cusack or James Franco? Be both conceptual and confessional? Both sharp and slack? And Alice was saying also that she couldn’t see why writing in the first person was so bad if you could find a way to get enough distance from yourself that every time you used ‘I’ it was sort of you, sort of someone else, sort of everyone, sort of no one, sort of a comment on how everyone’s personal mythos has somehow survived postmodernism, just as a culture of celebrity—you know, like, the mythos of others as filtered through the mythos of the self—has.” So here’s where I stepped in
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
and said that of course you can do all these things, and one doesn’t need to slap a label on it to make it more important than it is. And I added that the final determination of any strategy one uses in writing a poem is whether the poem places pressure on language in an interesting way, and does so with a level of care we’d associate with advanced compositional techniques. I mentioned also that putting labels on one’s own writing as part of developing a “poetics” or whatever just isn’t done—that’s what scholars are for, you know, and that’s why artists wait for scholars to talk about them instead of talking about (or even among) themselves about the sorts of things Alice was so preoccupied with. And here’s where Lila got animated, and I’m really going to start summarizing here in my own words because what she said didn’t make any sense. She said
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{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{snare}{cello}
{snare}{cello}
{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
that what I was describing to her—care; attention; craft; distance; a sort of consistency; calibration of intent but not response; language units as the primary unit of measure in language—sounds absolutely nothing like the Internet, or her eight hundred channels of cable, and as she and her generation have been raised as much by the Internet and cable as anything or anyone else, why should either her mode of composition or the composition itself conform to an understanding of art so outrageously removed from her experience of life, and more suitable to her parent’s pre-Internet, six-channel generation than her own? Why did poetry have to feel so distant all the time, when every other stimulant in her life was pounding pounding pounding in her brain all hours of the day? She loves poetry, she loves poetry more than anything else, she’s willing to lose everything for Art—she said that to someone after the recent brouhaha online—why when something important happens to me or my friends or my community am I supposed to take a few weeks to draft a perfectly appropriate response in line with approved postmodern writing techniques, all the while further ensuring that I’m doing my small part to keep poetry on the perimeter of American life? Why can’t my compositional method be synchronous with the sociocultural framework of the Age? Why can’t I risk an oscillation between sloppiness and sublimity, or caution and recklessness, when the present state of the species and my own life is exactly this? Why can’t I acknowledge that things fall apart in ways that bring horror into our lives, but nevertheless seek to advance a claim of subjectivity I know is always-already compromised? Why can’t I choose the sublimity of ambiguity over the banality of obvious craft? Why can’t I choose my right to disillusion myself with a sense of wholeness over some stranger’s theory-driven certainty that I can never be whole? Why don’t creative writing programs teach poets how to go on the Internet and do something other than offer up affective responses, ad hominem attacks, and by-the-book craft readings of work that makes them uncomfortable or offends their received sensibilities, when we’d discourage such intellectual mayonnaise from even the first-semester freshmen here at UW-Madison? Why can’t poetry be a critical and communal data-processing praxis capable of reifying all the false certainties and earnest uncertainties of everything I actually know or think I should know, everything I actually feel or think I should feel, everything I experience and can’t process properly or responsibly, both the vain ambitions of modernism and the cynical refusals of postmodernism, expressing not my fear about how the generations preceding mine will receive my work, expressing not merely the craven zeitgeist of some literary cabal online, but above all the state of suspended confusion MY WHOLE FUCKING GENERA
{808}{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{snare}{cello}
{808}{snare}{cello}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}
{808}{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}respect the fact that many have thought very hard
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}every student thinks they can{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}
{808}{violin}{cello}something “new”{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}{snare}{cello}
{808}{snare}poetry can deliver a counterpoint to this wasteful and superficial haste{cello}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}
{808}{double bass}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}{double bass}
{808}{double bass}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}{double bass}
{808}{double bass}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}{double bass}
{808}{double bass}
{oboe}{clarinet}{french horn}{double bass}
{808}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{snare}{cymbal}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}should calm down and stop thinking that{cymbal}{contrabassoon}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{bassoon}{chimes}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{contrabassoon}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}difficult for a man to have a stake{snare}{cymbal}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}{double bass}
{violin}{cello}{snare}{cymbal}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
a place of privilege
{808}
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{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}{violin}
{808}{violin}
{808}{violin}
{808}{violin}
{808}{violin}
{808}{violin}{cello}
{808}{violin}or wise up{cello}
{808}{violin}{cello}
{808}{violin}{cello}
{808}{violin}{cello}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{808}{violin}{cello}and if you don’t know what an “808” is you shouldn’t be here{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
REALITY IS ONLY A UNIT OF MEASURE
{80{violin}8}
{80{violin}8}
{80{violin}8}
{80{violin}8}
{80{violin}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cel{full kit}lo}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cel{full kit}lo}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cel{full kit}lo}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cel{full kit}lo}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cel{full kit}lo}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full{flute} kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full{flute} kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full{flute} kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full{flute} kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full{flute} kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flu{double bass}te}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flu{double bass}te}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flu{double bass}te}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flu{double bass}te}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flu{double bass}te}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{dou{tuba}ble bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{dou{tuba}ble bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{dou{tuba}ble bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{dou{tuba}ble bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{dou{tuba}ble bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tu{808}ba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tu{808}ba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tu{808}ba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tu{808}ba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{80{808}8}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{808}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}{full kit}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}{cello}
{80{violin}8}{vio{cello}lin}
{80{violin}8}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
Life has attracted me, life has denied me; forced me to give, forced me to take;
spoiled me, tried me, hit me; desired me like a girlfriend, treated me like a sex
crime. I will never give up. I will never be stuck inside life. I deserve better
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
I
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
I
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{808}
{I}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}
{I}{808}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{violin}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{cello}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{full kit}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{flute}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{double bass}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{tuba}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{car}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{click}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{beep}{ring}{click}
{I}{ring}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}{click}
{I}
{click}
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Seth Abramson is the author of four collections of poetry, including Thievery (University of Akron Press, 2013), winner of the 2012 Akron Poetry Prize, and Northerners (Western Michigan University Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize from New Issues Poetry & Prose. A regular contributor to Indiewire, he is also Series Co-Editor for Best American Experimental Writing (Wesleyan University Press, 2015).