The Poetry Closet: Johnny No Bueno
the statute of limitations is up on all of my crimes...I hope
It’s about 4am…
There are two raccoons in the tree. I can see them from the window of the Poetry Closet. They found a safe spot, away from random dogs and humans. One raccoon is grooming the other. A little tender moment. My headphones are filled with Haley Heynderickx’s album “I Need to Start a Garden” on repeat. Makes the rougher nights go by better. There’s not much to report, days seem to repeat themselves, the business of poetry does that too. Another little book being produced—now volume 4, another bucket of anxiety to drink up—will it make it or won’t it? Got my first vaccine shot. So there’s that. I often think of the introduction to these interviews as a kind of letter to strangers. The point of course is to tell you that there’s a damn good poet sharing thoughts and poems just a little ways below. But there’s also that bit of saying hello, bringing you to the tiny room where these interviews are conceived. Some days, however, I’m not up to that—like a raccoon I want to climb up the tree where the random things of the world won’t get at me.
So. Johnny No Bueno.
Goddamn like him. Punches me in the guts with poetry. Shatters little comfortable lies poets tell themselves to make peace with their egos and, damn, we all could use that. On page or on stage, Johnny takes you places and makes you feel all of it. I must’ve seen him perform at Backspace or at Slabtown during one of Portland Poetry Slam evenings back in 2013-14. You know one of those moments when you hear someone perform and just say “damn…” to yourself. The next time I saw him was on our makeshift outside stage at the Rocking Frog Cafe. Micah Fletcher was a feature that evening and invited Johnny to the event.
Johnny walked up to the mic—just a set for an open mic. He read. That same “damn…” feeling happened. He said he hasn’t read on stage for a while—I couldn’t believe it. Last year, I picked up his newest book Concrete & Juniper. Read it during some of the toughest emotional turmoils of the year. Wrote what I consider one of my better poems, fully, I think, because of reading his work. Borrowed my friend’s copy of We Were Warriors—kept re-reading it. Finally got my own copy of that book a bit later. In the past year and a half we crossed paths a few times and he quickly became one of my favorite humans. Rough and gentle. Supportive and questioning. A great sense of humor. A damn good poet. A damn good human. So it was a no-brainer for me to ask Johnny a few questions. I’m pretty excited that he agreed. My current melancholy be damned—if we were on stage I’d tell you:
make some goddamn noise for
Johnny No Bueno!
NAILED: What is your “poetry closet”?
Johnny No Bueno: Street corners, barstools, and coffeeshops. I don't write at home. One of the worst things about 2020 is being unable to write. There's no muse staring at my four walls feeling sorry for myself. I need urban chaos. That is the heartbeat of my writing.
N: Why do you write poetry?
JNB: I write poetry because I have a moral obligation to do so. One day, back in the early 2000s, I read a poem that spoke the very sentiment I had toward the literary world, and for once, I felt connected to somebody...something. There have been times throughout my life that I have wanted to die, to relapse on booze and drugs, but some poem, some song, gave me the perspective I needed, maybe it was the spite, to carry on one more day. I view these moments as unearned gifts. And now believe it to be my moral obligation to offer that same gift to someone else. I may not change the world, but maybe I can change someone's day.
N: What is your go-to “comfort” poetry book?
JNB: My go-to books are All Blacked Out & Nowhere To Go by Bucky Sinister, What Narcissism Means To Me by Tony Hoagland, and Shahid Reads His Own Palm by Reginald Dwayne Betts.
N: What poetry book are you reading right now?
JNB: I am currently reading Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts, Post-Colonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz, and Homie by Danez Smith.
N: Is being a poet what you imagined it would be?
JNB: Starving, lonely, and bitter? Yes.
N: What’s the strangest thing you’ve done to make ends meet as a poet?
JNB: This is kind of a loaded question ‘cause I have been writing poetry since I was a child. So if you want to get technical, I guess the obvious one would be as a gay-for-pay hustler when I lived on the streets. I was a sex worker on-and-off for 12 to 13 years. I mean, I have been a sex worker, drug dealer, stick-up kid, collections for drug dealers, or just basic muscle. I only say this cause the statute of limitations is up on all of my crimes...I hope.
N: What are the best, the worst and the weirdest moments of your poetry life?
JNB: I think one of the highlights of my life that involves my writing was the west coast tour I did with Criminal Class Press. I believe that was the first time I ever met Bucky Sinister in person, when I stayed at his condo in Oakland for a few dates in the Bay. We got to join Kent and Keith Zimmerman at their writing workshop in San Quentin Prison. There is nothing like signing a waiver that says you understand that the prison will not negotiate for your release if you were to be taken hostage. We traveled I-5 in a van full of every walk of life. We had guys smuggling dope, or smoking crack at our hosts homes. A van full of weirdos listened to a 14 hour storytelling of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition. After driving straight through from Portland to LA, I phoned a 12 step friend and was carted around LA going to meeting after meeting. At one point I got to go to a special effects warehouse and I got to see the very camera and track that filmed the famous Matrix shot. And finally when we got to our reading in LA, I met a captain of the Compton Gang Task Force who was a fan of my work and we have been somewhat friends ever since.
The worst is juggling egos when running a reading. I helped organize the Portland Poetry Slam for a while, as well as ran my own reading series – Them's Fightin' Words – for a number of years. Promoting like that always starts out as a desire to give people a platform for their voices, but it can quickly dissolve into an epic clash of the egos. My time as a host and a promoter was what lead to the hiatus I have taken for the last five years. It even turned me off to writing in general, which I am finally getting over... I hope.
One of my funnest/weirdest memories was in San Jose. I had been on an annual camping trip with friends, and we had stopped in San Jose after the camp-out to see a show some friends of ours were playing. There just so happened to be a street fair, so before their set, I decided to wander around and check it out. I hadn't wandered too far from the venue when all of sudden I hear my name over a speaker “Johnny No Bueno!” Part expecting to get jumped, I spun around to find Mighty Mike McGee standing under a tent, beckoning me over. I had completely forgotten that he had moved to San Jose, and was excited to see my friend, whom I hadn't seen in some time. He asked me to perform a poem. Being completely unprepared and put on the spot, I tried to perform one of my old slam pieces, but dropped the poem half way through. I was embarrassed but was happy to see my buddy. You never know who you are going to meet in this weird poetry world, and sometimes you never know when you're going to run into them.
Plagues
I am reading Jericho Brown
watching the clothed faces
stroll up and down Hawthorne
acting as if our collective suffered
isolation is over, and that these
masks are the agreed upon scars
the only things left in the wake
of a plague. I am reading
Jericho Brown. Something
about a hair under a microscope,
then about a white woman
and black man. Just then a black
girl, a white boy, and a brown
someone walk by. I put my book
down and try to dig, for an honest
white thought or a hidden white
emotion. I can sit here on Hawthorne
in Portland Oregon and think
to myself that I hate people and all
the baggage this skin suit tows
in its meanderings in one of the whitest
cities in America. But I wonder
if this is just another stupid mask
I wear, trying to stave off the plague
of accountability.
N: In your latest book, Concrete & Juniper, you mix poetry and prose; how did that come about?
JNB: I have always been interested in creative nonfiction, lyric essay, and the like. I wanted to include some prose in my second collection to kind of show that I am not a one-trick pony. Only the lucky and connected get work from someone reading their poetry. The rest of us have to prove ourselves.
N: When has poetry failed you?
JNB: Poetry has never failed me. Humanity always will, but poetry never will.
N: You have been performing poetry for a while and your performances pack an emotional punch, what do you think makes stage poetry so powerful?
JNB: I actually resent the concept of “stage poetry.” More often than not, a great deal of the work that gets pawned off as spoken word/performance/stage poetry are well crafted monologues using overarching metaphors mixed with underlying symbolism and tones. I do not agree with my colleagues who purport that there is some kind of academic cabal that gate keeps the world of poetry from peasants. I think that those who can command a crowd by reading their work out loud are better salesmen, while those who have command of the page have better products. We're all just salesmen. The only difference is who is buying what and from whom.
That being said, “stage poetry” is powerful because it is immediate; it takes away the heavy intellectual lifting that comes along with the craft of receiving poetry. And yes, I do believe that the reading/listening of poetry is a craft in and of itself, because the creative process does not end at the writer. The reader/listener brings with them their world perspectives, all the conditioning they have developed before coming to a specific poem, and their mental/emotional state while receiving the poem. During a performative reading, the audience doesn't have to know anything about ghazals, or enjambment, or the use of white space on page directing the poem's momentum. They get the distilled ideas and imagery without any of the difficulty.
The best example I can think of is Sam Sax. Read their poems and then watch them read their poems. Their page is filled with nuance and the subtle pushing of literary boundaries. But when you watch them read, their delivery is filled with a passion and a ferocity that the written work may not actually connote.
N: What’s the longest you’ve gone without writing? What brought you back?
JNB: I have spent the last 5 or 6 years not writing. This was due to a lot of things that came to a head at once. Partially the time it took to get this latest book published, the ego juggling that I talked about earlier, and, like I said earlier, poetry will never fail me, but too many people did.
What is bringing me back now, is partially the publication of Concrete & Juniper, and partially the help of some friends, including Bucky Sinister and Foster Claire.
N: Have you ever tried working in other art forms? Why was poetry the one to stick?
JNB: This might seem a bit ego-maniacal, but the thing about poetry is that I just happen to have an aptitude for communication through figurative language. I don't think that without that aptitude if I would still be as interested in poetry as I am. That being said, I feel that if anybody applies themselves long enough, that anybody could write poems and books that could easily change the world. It takes a bit of talent, a bit arrogance, and utter determination.
I have actually always envied visual artists. I actually always wanted to be a graffiti artist. But I just do not have the knack, and therefore I just don't have the patience to practice. To be completely transparent, if I am not good at something immediately, I give up entirely.
N: What is the best advice to poets that you have or come across?
JNB: I had a lot of snide and contrarian things to say, but I think the MOST important advice I have ever received and given is never write a poem without having read three poems. You should always be reading way more than you are writing. My ideas are not that interesting alone. I am more interested in seeing how a poem adds to the dialectic conversation of poetry, instead of constantly adding a bunch of innocuous shit. No one is that unique or that good without the influence of each other. I like to consider myself more as a part of poetry, than a poet.
The Rage of Ents
I often imagine the hatred of trees.
How angry they must be, their roots
choked by sidewalks and littered syringes.
How they are trimmed against their will
for some pieces of steel, for children
to scream atop. Or beneath. How the trees
have been forgotten. When did we stop
asking them the questions about our future
or where we put our souls when we're born?
What an ancient rage, for the trees
have stopped talking. Stopped dancing.
Stood stalk still. Pointing at the sky.
Waiting for the fire.
N: When did you come out to family/friends as a poet? What was their reaction?
JNB: My father instilled in me a love for poetry. It was no surprise to anyone when I developed an obsession and aptitude for writing.
N: What’s the point of poetry?
JNB: Poetry is supposed to the collective subconscious of a society. Poetry defines and communicates a society’s slight and subtle subconscious movements. On top of that it also rips open and exposes the human condition—a human condition that more often than not struggles to be put into words. Poetry distills human experience which allows us, as humans, to make the subconscious abstract world tangible and gives it a common language.
N: How many hours a day are you a poet? What are you the rest of the time?
JNB: I have never had the discipline to do something every day. When I am writing, I write four to five hours a week, normally in one sitting. On a good week, I might write two or three times a week. Most of the time I am actually playing video games and unsuccessfully perusing dating apps.
N: Who sees your first drafts?
JNB: Normally the trash can. If they don't make it to a trash can, I may share something with people, but I normally don't until it is ready for publication.
N: What’s the most embarrassing poem you’ve ever written?
JNB: I have written an abundance of trash. I would say one out of every twenty poems go to print, or get made public.
N: Even poets have to eat. What’s been a go-to meal you can whip up on a poet’s budget?
JNB: Dumpster diving at Saturday Market has always proved profitable. All kidding aside (not really kidding) I can't cook for shit. Having grown up on the streets, I have always eaten fast food and convenience store food.
N: What’s a lesson poetry has taught you about life?
JNB: Even if you are good at something, even if you give it 200% of all that you are, it rarely ever amounts to anything fruitful. If you want to get anywhere in life, the only thing that matters is who you know. So be nice to people. I have burned way too many bridges over the years being my self-righteous cis-het white dude self. And at 40 something, it is normally too late to clean up enough of my wreckage for it to ever mean anything.
N: What's next in your poetry life? What would you like to do once we can perform and travel again?
JNB: I would love to have a book release party. Maybe tour a couple of cities to promote. Concrete & Juniper came out during the pandemic and in the midst of the worst bout of isolated depression I have ever experienced. My publisher’s decision to publish in the middle of all of that, especially after waiting 6 years to get published, feels like a spit in the face, and my book fell on deaf ears, let alone a complete lack of promotion.
Once I do that, I will probably switch gears and move into fiction and screenwriting. While my work has a wonderful devout audience, it does not reach across the economic gap enough to ever sustain me. And the current small press poetry model leaves A LOT to be desired. I take a lot of my cues from my friend and mentor Bucky Sinister, as well as a lot of the 80s and 90s San Francisco underground literary scene. Most of them have gone on to publish novels and write movies. I would like to leave a bigger mark than two small slots in some Booktubers black section of their color-coordinated bookshelf.
N: How can people support you and your work?
JNB: I sell my books on my website johnnynobueno.com. You can support me via @JohnnyNoBueno on Venmo. I am also always available for freelance editing, and I love doing writing and meditation workshops.
N: Would you give a single word prompt to write a poem?
JNB: I prefer to give metaphor building exercises or asking my students to pay attention to what the white space on the page is doing as opposed to single word topics, so this is a bit difficult for me, as I don't want it to come off as contrived or dismissive.
AUTHENTICITY
The Poetry Closet is a semi-regular column of poetry and discussion, curated by Igor Brezhnev. You can reach Igor with inquiries, comments, and other messages pertaining to the closet at nailedpoetrycloset@gmail.com
Delve into the previous Poetry Closet, here.
Johnny No Bueno is the bastard child of Portland punk poetry. No Bueno grew up on the streets, in and out of incarceration, entrenched in gang violence, narcotic addicted, but has risen to cult status in the “scumbag lit” scene. No Bueno was the lead poetry editor for Criminal Class Press (RIP), one-time Communications Director for the Portland Poetry Slam, and the founder, promoter, and host of Them’s Fightin’ Words (RIP). No Bueno’s two collections We Were Warriors (University of Hell, 2012) and Concrete & Juniper (University of Hell, 2020) are both available at johnnynobueno.com
