The Nostalgia, Memory, Poetry minisode

[00:00:00] Hi Evan, Hi Christina. It's a very exciting day today. We were talking about queer memory in Nostalgia.

[00:00:09] But why are we talking about queer memory in Nostalgia? Because I have a book coming out that deals with memory in Nostalgia.

[00:00:21] Yes, that you do. You have a book coming out which we will talk about also. We started a press together.

[00:00:30] It's called Double Text Media and your book is our first book.

[00:00:34] It is very exciting. Yeah, we're starting a media empire. We are yes. First the podcast then the poetry shop books.

[00:00:43] Although like um the high ticket markets you know exactly exactly exactly. This is our get rich quick ski.

[00:00:50] Absolutely. It's going really well. Poetry and podcast.

[00:00:54] Yeah, straight to the top. But yeah before we get into talking about queer memory in Nostalgia

[00:01:00] why don't you tell us a little bit about your book? Well it is called recurring characters

[00:01:07] and it takes place primarily in 2014. And I suppose in some ways it is a memoir. It's poetry

[00:01:20] but it has a narrative arc to it and there are recurring characters.

[00:01:30] And this is really talking about weird and chaotic and difficult time in my life

[00:01:40] and also the people who were a part of that. That's a great description. Thank you.

[00:01:48] It's an excellent book. Thank you. Do you want to read us a poem from your book to get us started?

[00:01:55] Okay so this is one of the early poems in the collection and it is called Who I saw first.

[00:02:02] The first time we speak miles is standing on the edge of the grass, smoking a cigarette

[00:02:07] looking like the best kind of trouble. This is not the first time I've looked at him across an

[00:02:13] expansive space but it is the first time I've seen him looking back. I don't know yet that we

[00:02:20] won't go home together that I will think he's not interested and he will think the same.

[00:02:26] I don't know that months later he will sleep in my bed and tell me we can't kiss.

[00:02:33] I don't know yet that he will tell me everything would have been different if I had only chosen

[00:02:37] him. He invites me to a party and I don't know that the window of opportunity will slam shut on my

[00:02:45] fingers while I am waiting for a breeze. Hmm, so good. It's such a good book y'all. I'm going to be

[00:02:53] a little bit biased but I think it's great. There's a lot of interesting things you're doing with form

[00:03:01] and memory and I just love it. Thank you so good. What was the process of putting the books

[00:03:10] together like how did recurring characters come to be? It came together really quickly. It didn't.

[00:03:20] I think I went on a vacation and you were like so I written a book and I was like I've been gone for

[00:03:25] five days. Truly not a full week. It started because I realized I had like four or five poems

[00:03:37] where I had some recurring elements where I wrote about the same thing from different

[00:03:44] perspectives in like points in time and I was like oh it would be interesting to put these poems

[00:03:52] in conversation with each other and call it recurring characters. So originally the recurring

[00:03:58] characters were not people they were like eggs which makes that touch up by the collection

[00:04:04] and you're like oh yes the egg. Yes the egg again. And yeah so I was like I have these like four or

[00:04:13] five poems and I just thought I was going to put them together like into a zine and I met with one of

[00:04:21] our friends to talk about zines that I kind of like explained this idea and she was like I have a

[00:04:27] question for you why not a book and I have a question well the book seems like a lot of work

[00:04:36] or like it would be hard and I don't know I just like wanted to do this thing and also like these

[00:04:42] are the poems that I have that sort of fit this idea. And she was like well it doesn't have to be

[00:04:47] a full length collection you could do like a chapuk and for folks who aren't familiar a full length

[00:04:54] poetry collection is usually between like 60 and like 120 pages the lower limit is like a little

[00:05:03] bit flexible but so that could be like if you're someone that writes short poems that are like

[00:05:11] a single page you could have 100 plus poems in a collection. Yeah a chapuk is somewhere under that like

[00:05:22] 60 page range I feel like they're mostly under 50 but yeah it's not a it's a flexible form I guess

[00:05:30] yeah there's also like the microchart which is even shorter without your yeah so it's as

[00:05:35] the way that I've been explaining to people is like what the novella is to a novel yeah

[00:05:41] the chapuk is to a full length collection technically a chapuk could also be fiction but then

[00:05:46] getting into the weeds yeah it's most common for poetry people came here again to the weeds

[00:05:50] I really wanted a little dissertation on the poetic forms so anyway our friend was like you could

[00:06:00] do like a chapuk and someone else that we know Sarah Thursday has this book called 17 poems not

[00:06:06] about a lover and it is 17 poems that are not about a lover great title for the concept yes

[00:06:14] and she has like many other books that are about lovers so that's time like what it was doing

[00:06:19] it's a very cool book highly recommend it has really cool art in it as well so she was like yeah like

[00:06:25] you could do you know 17 poems or something like it could be short and I was like well I don't

[00:06:31] know maybe I'll think about it and then I went home and like that same day wrote like two or three

[00:06:36] poems and then like wrote many more in the consecutive days it just sort of like poured out of me

[00:06:42] like I wrote more poems in like a two week period than I had written in the last two, three years prior combined

[00:06:50] so that came together really quickly and I think part of that is that I had a very tight

[00:06:56] premise and it was like a story that I had kind of been telling to myself that I have tried

[00:07:04] writing about in various different ways and so I had sort of like done the preliminary work of like

[00:07:19] I was trying to write a memoir which is kind of a weird thing to do at like 21 but

[00:07:29] I was like things are happening and I like have stuff to say about them and that was like the

[00:07:33] mechanism that I had for processing and now I look at that and I'm like this is not a book

[00:07:39] like the what I wrote at the time but I sort of see what I was trying to do and so in many ways

[00:07:45] like that got pulled into this so like I had done I had done the preliminary work I guess that's

[00:07:55] gonna how it happened and then I like sent it to a couple of people and based on their feedback like

[00:08:02] wrote some more poems and so actually the majority of the poems in this collection I wrote specifically

[00:08:10] for this. That's cool. Yeah there are a couple that are older some of which I like wrote at

[00:08:18] I wrote in 2014 that have been like I re-wrote them a little bit or reworked them and finally the

[00:08:24] James Franco poem is committed to the page but I'm so happy for all of you at home to get to read it's

[00:08:29] so good. Yeah so that's yeah and you you really had done a lot of groundwork before

[00:08:40] like you have a lot of like raw material from that time like you have like text messages saved

[00:08:47] you know for better or for worse yeah and you had a lot of like a femora I think from that time

[00:08:55] that you were like engaging with which is an interesting like archival project yeah yeah it was

[00:09:03] cool and interesting and also at times a little like retraumatizing yeah but yeah I had like text messages

[00:09:12] I also like looked in a lot of old pictures and one of the things that I do in here of it

[00:09:22] I like is there is a playlist that goes with the book that it's like in the book and I mean people

[00:09:32] we love a playlist we do love a playlist you can find them on the Patreon every month we had shop

[00:09:37] run on their years ago so if you're trying to be up-to-date you know you're not a friend of it

[00:09:44] and actually this is gonna be our playlist for September so yeah we'll get to see you'll get

[00:09:52] it delivered to you yes you're welcome and that was like putting together that playlist was

[00:10:01] really interesting because I I am the one that loves parameters on a playlist because he was like

[00:10:07] it's all vines and I'm like no what are the rules so I was like it has to be music that I was

[00:10:20] listening to at the time or like conceivably could have been listening to which means it has to

[00:10:27] come out by 2014 so maybe it's an artist I discovered in 2015 or 2016 or something but it's a

[00:10:35] song that was out then I was like willing to make that kind of concession but I wanted it to be

[00:10:41] like the music that I was listening to at that time and I wanted it to have like a relationship

[00:10:49] to what's going on in the story and initially I was thinking of it as kind of like a soundtrack

[00:10:56] and so I was like oh maybe it'll be like every song in the playlist like corresponds

[00:11:01] to one of the poems in the book um it ended up not quite I'd like tried that and then I kind of

[00:11:12] went into the MP3s that I like have on my computer um deep into the archive and so I was like okay

[00:11:19] what was that and I had a bunch of playlist that I'd made at the time so I could see like when I made

[00:11:24] the playlist so I was able to use it really supported me there um so I was like when did I make these

[00:11:29] playlists like what was I listening to and then I also had playlist that I had made for people

[00:11:36] that I write about in the book so I was like what was the music that I like wanted them to be

[00:11:43] listening to and actually the very first song in the playlist someone who is in this book

[00:11:49] introduced me to it's a song from no such thing um i think that's the only one of the only ones

[00:11:56] that was like a song that was given to me hmm will say and then there's a couple of songs

[00:12:03] that were actually like playing just like in my life um at like relevant times where I sort of

[00:12:12] clocked like the vampire weekend song playing right now like um narrow devising my own life

[00:12:24] yes so I put this playlist together and then made a poem out of the playlist to the mock out poem

[00:12:31] there's two actually in the book um i don't know if anyone else is going to care about this playlist

[00:12:35] uh composition process but it was an interesting project to be like what was I listening to then

[00:12:43] like because this was 2010 years ago now like yeah in 2014 what music was important to me

[00:12:53] and that sort of I did a little you know side quest of like there's a couple songs there was one song

[00:12:57] I put on and I immediately got super emotional and I was like wow i forgot the song existed

[00:13:03] and now I'm like ready to just cry which is wild that's art yeah yeah and i think um

[00:13:09] i'm interested in the compilation process um and i think that that like approached to the book

[00:13:16] makes the stories feel very immediate like the the speaker feels close to the situation um like it

[00:13:23] doesn't feel like present day Evan being like and 10 years ago i did this thing like it feels

[00:13:29] very immediate like you really did the work to like rebuild that world for yourself to write in as though

[00:13:36] it was freshly happening. I keep I keep thinking about the poems and thinking that they're old

[00:13:41] poems despite the fact that like two months. 90% of these poems have been written in the last

[00:13:47] 30 days yeah um but because it is like about 10 years ago so many of them i kind of like forget

[00:13:57] my style has certainly advanced or my yeah abilities of advanced in the last 10 years but

[00:14:03] I was very like in yeah all of those yeah feelings yeah it's not like a hindsight 2020

[00:14:16] and here i'm gonna you know like reflect on what happened it's like it's happening now

[00:14:22] and here is what i'm experiencing and i think that like even though the reader won't see

[00:14:27] all of that like archive work that you did um it like comes across um in the in the work

[00:14:35] we also learned you have a poem that has an address in the title and we learned that um we haven't

[00:14:42] looked to see like distance wise how far apart they are but i was working on that same street

[00:14:49] in the same year that you were there um and at least the same city so that's like so romantic

[00:14:58] 10 years ago yeah crossing managed to find each other he did across the era highway

[00:15:05] yeah so even though you were like you're writing in the present like your present in the

[00:15:12] situations obviously you now live in 2024 and so like we have talked about nostalgia on the show

[00:15:21] before um love nostalgia sometimes love to long but i'm wondering like what that uh like didn't

[00:15:32] so I would play a role in putting this book together for you as the author even if it's not

[00:15:36] necessarily like a character on the page yeah so the very last poem in the book um

[00:15:46] sort of takes place in 2024 that's like the title of the poem it is 2024 and it is

[00:15:53] the only place in the book where i'm explicitly like telling you uh kind of where i'm doing

[00:16:03] looking back on the page um where the speaker is reflective of course the speaker um and

[00:16:11] i'm not gonna read the whole poem but i do think there is like a relevant bit that it'll be more

[00:16:19] concise to read you that um you think maybe you finally know what the show is about what the

[00:16:27] writers were trying to say or maybe not maybe it's only the familiarity of a story you have seen so many

[00:16:34] times before the glow of nostalgia even if you didn't like the show the first time through

[00:16:40] yeah it's that like i was very unhappy but 20s what 2014 weren't we all yeah but like i was

[00:16:49] unhappy because i was deeply depressed i wasn't unhappy because like my life was terrible it was like

[00:16:56] i um didn't didn't have a lot of coping skills and was using a lot of substances

[00:17:04] alcohol primarily i was drinking a lot of alcohol and um so was everyone

[00:17:11] everyone or pretty much everyone around me was also depressed and drinking a lot of alcohol

[00:17:15] so it just felt like normal i feel like this is just what it's like um yeah and

[00:17:25] so like when i think back about that times in many ways i'm like thought i was like so unhappy but

[00:17:31] i was so inside of it that i didn't i almost didn't know how unhappy i was i think also

[00:17:39] i am in such a better place mental health with my mental health also relationally and just like pretty

[00:17:45] every way that's great being an adult excellent yeah i was in nineteen and twenty-fourteen

[00:17:54] is that true no well yeah i was nineteen i was having to do all right i was like no you weren't

[00:18:02] because i was twenty one and then i was like well it depends on where we are here and also

[00:18:06] we are like two and a half fish yeah so um and yeah would never go back yeah being 31 much better than

[00:18:16] yeah but yeah like i so i can i both can like see i can hold how unhappy i was now in a way that i

[00:18:28] couldn't before but also like i did have people that i like cared about really deeply and also

[00:18:39] there were moments where um like there was one day that i was going to the beach

[00:18:48] with some friends and they weren't even like really close friends it was like one person who

[00:18:54] does show up in the book and then a bunch of other people that i just sort of tangentially know

[00:18:57] and i was like sitting in the back seat i think we were driving to like Santa Monica or something

[00:19:02] and we're like on the freeway and the windows are rolled down and the music is playing and i

[00:19:09] have this documented because i texted someone as it was happening and i was like i think this

[00:19:14] is the closest i will ever get to the vision of youth that i was sold to be in the car with the

[00:19:19] windows down and a song playing and like Carter is smoking a cigarette and we're on our way to the beach

[00:19:27] this is i just i have chills just like thinking about it right now yeah um

[00:19:34] and so there was stuff like that they're like felt good there's even stuff that i'm like probably

[00:19:40] i was unhappy while this was happening but thinking about it now i'm like oh yeah like that is

[00:19:47] i don't know special or is something that i feel nostalgic about in some ways

[00:19:56] i'm just thinking of this now but i guess in some ways one of the projects of this book was to like

[00:20:01] hold the complexity of a period that was really painful and also

[00:20:12] that it wasn't just that yeah that's so moving and also it feels very relatable

[00:20:23] i feel like i have had like a very fraught relationship with this soldier

[00:20:28] from most of my life and only now or recently have i been able to look back at the past with

[00:20:35] any sort of peace uh uh well because i think it's like i relate to you in the

[00:20:42] i would do to look back at a time and be like man things were not that bad but i was like so depressed

[00:20:48] and i'd be mad at my past self or like not being able to like maximize or whatever

[00:20:54] toxic nonsense um or i would like look back at a time and be like wow i was like happy there's

[00:21:00] less of that but like i was happy and now i'm not that happy what the fuck yeah um and i think to like

[00:21:08] be able to to look at the past and to think about the past and to make art about the past

[00:21:14] um with your present tools can be so healing and also like very interesting and also

[00:21:23] retraumatizing yeah there were a couple times where i was like this feels why am i doing this

[00:21:28] this feels bad um and in some cases it's because i was trying to write about something that i actually

[00:21:33] like didn't want to write about yeah like there was one particularly bad night that i was like

[00:21:40] like well i have to write about this because this is like the peak of the story arc or whatever and i

[00:21:46] like the more i tried to write about it the worse i felt and i was like actually

[00:21:53] this can just be a thing that happened and i don't need to like i don't need to write about it for

[00:21:59] other people's yeah consumption yeah no one is asking me to do that like i have just decided

[00:22:06] that that's what it should be yeah so sometimes it was instructive to be like oh i feel bad that

[00:22:12] means i should like pull back from this but sometimes it was just like okay i need to stop reading

[00:22:17] these text messages from i didn't know so go yeah um i often tell my students especially

[00:22:25] when i'm teaching adults poetry workshops my like number one rules just don't be an asshole

[00:22:30] yourself um and the first time that i did that was because i was teaching a workshop about

[00:22:38] a dendom poetry which is like e-writer poem and then you look back and say like what did i not say

[00:22:45] here or like what i need to add and sometimes we don't say things because we don't want to for very

[00:22:52] reasonable reason um and so i did i wanted to like and i didn't know the people that i was teaching

[00:22:57] so i was like let me not create a toxic space um and so i said like don't be mean to yourself like

[00:23:03] if like you're you're well-being is more important to me than you're poem today um and i've been

[00:23:09] surprised every time i say that rule someone is like oh i like have permission to like not do this thing

[00:23:15] because i can prioritize myself but i'm like yeah wild that we don't just think that um and yeah i think

[00:23:23] sometimes like the the places where you go and writing that feel uncomfortable like cool things

[00:23:30] can happen from there but also you need to know where that line is for you and also like because

[00:23:38] you're putting this together with the intent of sharing it that's different from being like

[00:23:42] this is a reflective practice and we'll see what happens yeah yeah it's like knowing the

[00:23:48] difference between if you were like doing a stretch or you're doing an exercise of like um is this

[00:23:54] difficult or is this painful yeah because you should not be experiencing pain when you are like

[00:24:02] doing a stretch yeah but it might be difficult and like that is not inherently bad yeah yeah

[00:24:11] and i feel like at least i'll speak for myself 10 years ago i would not have known where that line was

[00:24:16] i would have just like harmed myself with art yes man we don't have time to like get into this

[00:24:22] thing about the ways that like that's glorified oh my god particularly i mean i just think about like

[00:24:28] the people that i knew who are like well i don't want to go on you know anti depressants because

[00:24:34] like what if i can't write good poems anymore and like first of all that's a myth but also

[00:24:39] you are more important than your f**k oh as well like we should make a shirt that says that you

[00:24:44] matter more than your poems yeah i've had so many conversations with people who were like oh yeah

[00:24:49] i'm so happy that i'm not like on dating apt anymore because then a relationship but also i'm

[00:24:54] a suppoetry and i'm like i mean you can just keep it you can be like me and just keep writing

[00:24:59] about the same handful of situations as for those of your life that's fine um i want to teach

[00:25:05] younger students like teenagers i'm they don't like i don't always do the dopied to yourself

[00:25:11] think because they like don't always know what that means but i will say to them like your poetry

[00:25:18] doesn't have to be tragic like it doesn't have to be you don't have to like perform trauma if you

[00:25:25] want to sure but like there are really good poems about really good things yeah and uh you don't

[00:25:34] have to be sad to be creative yeah because i wish someone had told teenage Christina about

[00:25:40] yes also to uh to invoke Taylor Swift here um i've been thinking about in her tiny desk concert

[00:25:50] she talks about something that people would be like well like what happens if you're happy

[00:25:55] like are you gonna be able to write any like songs and she was like what will happen if i'm happy

[00:26:01] oh no and then she just made up people to write songs about exactly yeah and wrote a very successful

[00:26:08] album that we like so like uh you just make fictional people unhappy and put them in your poems

[00:26:16] or your fiction or whatever you want like you could just make fictional people unhappy

[00:26:23] that is so funny yeah and i also feel like as you like move through the world and like

[00:26:29] become more like yourself and have new experiences those inform the memories that we have

[00:26:35] and so you can even write about the same real thing but with a very different ones yeah which is

[00:26:41] sort of how this book yeah started because i was like there are a couple things that i

[00:26:48] want to talk about but i talk about them in different ways at different points in time and yeah

[00:26:55] yeah i have a particular short relationship that i write a lot about that i i i've written

[00:27:01] a lot about for a long time but i write about it and carry it so differently now that i like know

[00:27:07] that i am queer because i'm like oh they're like i was looking for other things in this

[00:27:16] relationship and like the relationship ending like meant other things besides it's ending yeah

[00:27:23] did you find that in this book for you like were you out to yourself in 2014? i was

[00:27:31] it's been interesting it was interesting working on this book because one of the primary

[00:27:39] narratives is ostensibly about these like two guys and this love triangle um sort of

[00:27:48] there's a period in time where i would have looked at that and been like this is not a very queer

[00:27:56] like book or like um it's about boys oh no yeah um but now i'm like well for one thing

[00:28:11] bisexual people are famously attracted to a variety of people famously yeah

[00:28:17] and so in fact that is a bisexual experience yeah that is queer

[00:28:23] and also then like finding little like moments of explicit where we're explicit queerness

[00:28:34] because yeah in theory somebody could just pick this up and read a couple random poems

[00:28:38] and like not know that i the writer or speaker of the poems is queer but it is

[00:28:53] in there um i don't know if we we probably don't turn it into this but i'm thinking about like

[00:29:02] the way that we because you're writing about memory so like things have already happened

[00:29:06] but also the people they were current characters themselves are like still people in the world who

[00:29:12] you don't have relationships with really anymore um and like the way that we carry like

[00:29:19] the versions of people that we knew and also like knowing the things exist and that like they

[00:29:24] probably have like also changed and grown but on their own journey or is the brain yeah i think

[00:29:32] that's gonna have to be a like patron on oh yes i'm like that's such a good idea oh god i've got

[00:29:38] like things to say but yeah people change yeah look i just i can't be talking about all the people

[00:29:46] writing poems about just like on the world why dinner and i mean you better they can pay me for

[00:29:50] the book i guess if they want to know what i have to say i literally said that to you recently

[00:29:53] you're like because i put out like a little ziden oh last this year it was like it was seven years ago

[00:30:01] last this year um called poems that can't put on the internet or it was like that was like the idea

[00:30:07] and um i put a couple of those poems in the manuscript that i'm working on and you were like really

[00:30:12] you want to put this out and i was like well not like as an Instagram post but like if somebody buys

[00:30:19] my book sure you could read the poems i wrote about you i don't care i mean also if i'm honest

[00:30:25] nothing i put in here would be a surprise to any of the people that are in it i mean you never know

[00:30:32] in this case i feel pretty confident like no one's gonna be like wow i didn't know you felt that way

[00:30:39] the poems that are older some of them i'm like wow i was so messy i would just like go to an

[00:30:44] open mic and be like here's this poem that i wrote about a person who's probably in the room that

[00:30:48] all of you know i'm in a read it now i'm a paramo i'm like it's like wow i was really out here doing that

[00:30:55] i'm gonna read it now

[00:30:59] that's why i would never did a poet i gotta be talking my shit and piece of my own community

[00:31:10] um well do you want to read us one more poem to close it out yeah this is a poem where you

[00:31:17] you get the recurring characters at least the ones that are people the porch in five parts

[00:31:25] one miles asks if i torture myself with him and i admit that i'm not sure

[00:31:30] he hopes i don't but he doesn't want to tell me that he does tell me he would kiss me if he didn't

[00:31:37] think that it would hurt too i tell Carter i'm not smoking any cigarettes while the sun is up

[00:31:45] my line in the sand liable to wash away with the tide he lights up anyway and passes it to me

[00:31:55] three my head is in peace lap and i'm talking about how i think i should marry a woman

[00:32:02] you think that's the answer p asks maybe it is four after his fourth four logo

[00:32:10] Dave tells me he's not ready to be in a relationship i want to put my whole heart in he says

[00:32:16] but i'm selfish and immature and kind of a drunk i learn i'm not the only one who wants something

[00:32:22] it's hurting them to have five i ask miles if we are dating but not he says we don't have the

[00:32:30] privilege of being unobserved we could never have a clean break with all the people standing in between

[00:32:38] i love that poem thank you where can people get their hands on their own copy of recurring

[00:32:47] characters there will be a link there will be a link in the show notes and we'll also add a link

[00:32:53] to the by pod website there will be a link on patreon you can also go to double text media dot

[00:33:01] com which is the website for our media empire yeah blomer it and then i was like

[00:33:10] not a can but it's a canomer yes yes or even my own website of in shell sea dot com great

[00:33:19] folks are in shell of for me might there be an opportunity for them to celebrate the launch of your

[00:33:25] book with you i will be having a book party on september 28th at 6 p.m. at page against the

[00:33:35] machine in long beach california will post something on the instagram um yeah great excellent

[00:33:43] love page against the machine it's great can we to be there an operating too so yeah all

[00:33:49] you hear Christina as well yeah amazing um well y'all need to get your hands on this book

[00:33:55] in my unbiased opinion that's an excellent read um the links will be where links are

[00:34:02] yeah and hopefully we'll see some of you on the 28th yeah well good bye