I could write an entire manuscript's worth of responses to Patricia Lockwood's Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals. Every poem inspired an idea. I decided to write one based on the first line of the final poem in the book: "I was a born as a woman, I talk you to death" and see where it took me. I plan on coming back to this book later. Gutting The Closet Of the Gay Nineties
Adam Stone I was born the promise of impending man poised to open jars and women with equal vigor I was raised with the impending winking compliment of my gender the tall enough to roller coaster by six to mow the crabgrass of adolescence from my face by twelve to tell a grown woman she was wrong by eleven I was wide as reason by thirteen fast tracked to the buffet of yacht club dances in the age of polo shirt villainy You should see how I danced around curfews and teacher-certified potential I was graceless as a man committed as a woman Grew into my cock with the awkward immediacy of a royal orphan I lived as flannel untucked and filthy the way I saw other boys with scratchboard voices flopping their unwashed bangs on TV How fortunate I bloomed too late for Aquanet overgrowth pink mountain lion print leggings How flannel to think fortunate to letharge between the raindrops of Boy George and Marilyn Manson rather than boldface falsetto my mocksculinity I was the appropriate hats for sports and camoflauge backhand at the tennis net coaching varsity women's volleyball in the winters when the swim team was too speedo I summer lifeguarded in the leg-crossing of attraction I ran sportscamp and drama I looked like I should beat myself up and I did constantly
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Andrew Campana's interaction with Patricia Lockwood's excellent collection, Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals. Patricia Lockwood Interaction
Andrew Campana “He marries her mites and the wires in her wings, he marries her yellow glass eyes and black centers, he marries her near-total head turn, he marries the curve of each of her claws, he marries the information plaque, he marries the extinction of this kind of owl…” —from “He Marries the Stuffed-Owl Exhibit at the Indiana Welcome Center,” by Patricia Lockwood I married the three jars of sauerkraut in the closet, I married the bacteria fermenting them, I married their lids rusting shut, I married the CO2 straining against metal, I married the vacuum-packed lentils, I married the Amazon box they came in, I married the apartment wall torn down to join two hollows together and the rubber flooring tensile across the gap membraned under chairs and table, I married the exhaust fan veiled so night can’t crawl in, I married its silence, I married the paper doors stuck still, I married their unpageness, I married the straw matting and the fear of it moulding, I married their grass scent in damp air, I married their ribs and grooves and the mites that don’t live in them, the felt cookie cat pin, the Totoro puzzle put back in the box, the fitted sheet, the lack of need for a fitted sheet, the tremors, the it’s okay, the flashlight by the balcony, the sink catcher and what’s been caught in it, the key to the Massachusetts storage locker, I married the storage locker, I married the boxes, I married the violin pausing on top of them |
InteractionalityAn ongoing conversation between writers and the text that they're reading. Archives
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