Stacey Teague

                 Whenever I think about the usefulness of twitter (a thought I have a lot) I think about a few people who actually make the experience worth it. These people are precious few, since so many twitter accounts appear to be bots or just shameless promotion. Encountering one of these people is akin to finding a four-leaf clover, you’re very lucky if you do. 

                Stacey Teague happens to be one of those people who make my twitter feed a better place. Thanks to Steve Roggenbuck’s wonderful project (#poetrybyemilydickinson) I noticed she was in on that digital poetry orgasm. Not sure if she was a poet, I checked her blogspot which she shares with her friend Susan. She is. 

                A lot of her poems seem to focus on animals. Perhaps she’s an animal person or enjoys thinking about their perspective on our overburdened life, all of its complications. Yet those animals have no idea how hard we have to work so they can just lollygag around the house, eating and sleeping. Things I should be doing.

                 “Post-Coitus” is the feeling of melancholy after coitus. It is also the name of Stacey’s first poem for NewWaveVomit. The poem’s focus seems to be on one of those low-key, mellow days which are tailor made for reflection. Even the sentence within the poem mentions how she talked about nothing much with her sister, who she loves. 

                “I Remember Everything” recollects a relationship in smeared details. Little bits and pieces of personality are displayed in the strangest of memories, for squishy moles and salts. Her line about “I love you” and how it can mean that or not mean that was particularly enjoyable. It makes me think of the words we say out of obligation rather than actual affection. Or the opposite could be true, where someone knows of the value of the words and refrains from saying it. 

                The last poem “Here are some of my “statement poems” feels like it should have another position, definitely before “I Remember Everything”. Perhaps it was Stacey’s intention to have thoughts on a previous relationship to come before details of the relationship, of making breakfasts and wet skinny jeans. 

                For LetPeoplePoems, she continues these thoughts on relationships. Dinosaurs are involved, actively listening. Since they are only dinosaurs, they don’t have to listen very hard. They only need to say ‘hmm’. “Brachiosaurus” appears to be a kind-hearted leaf-eater, who tries to comfort Stacey as she looks out on the harbor. Plus, she gets to climb on his back and find out about the bands he’s listening to, though we never hear any specific bands mentioned. 

                The other dinosaur poem “Diplodocus” expresses the narrator as a dinosaur. She expresses how we are vegetarians for moral reasons. Humans are aware of our own existence, making us feel a little crummier than the dinosaurs.  Due to this awareness, we feel heavier than several-ton extinct creatures. That is a bummer. 

                Her poems have a few running themes or conditions. I notice for nearly all of them it is raining or the words give an impression of rain. This may be due to her location in general, I’m not sure, and I’ve never been to New Zealand since I’m not a huge Lord of the Rings fan. Umbrellas get a great deal of mention, as do harbors and being wet in general. Animals are revered, particularly dinosaurs. Relationships form the basis of most of her poems. These are shown off in realistic ways, without being too happy or unhappy. It is a rare feat to capture a relationship in poetry without veering too heavily towards positivity or negativity. 

                She’s currently making a poetry anthology and needs submissions from New Zealand and Australia. Anyone from either of those locations should join immediately.

Training Boys and Training Girls

               Well, you see, when you reach a certain age you begin noticing certain changes. Your voice gets deeper and you discover hair in places you didn’t really pay attention to before. Now those places happen to be more interesting than they were before, you’re not really sure why. This is just a part of growing up. Also, you’re an asshole to your parents most of the time yet they tolerate it. Congratulations, you’re a teenager.

                The teenage stage exists in life as something you can look back and say “Well, at least I got to be an asshole with no negative consequences for roughly seven years”. While you’re busy being a repugnant jerk you want love. You want someone to be attracted to you, either physically, mentally, or spiritually (I don’t know if the last one is something which attracts people, maybe that works for Mormons).

                Anyway, everyone goes through this phase. You find someone. Maybe you’re lucky and it is that special someone. Generally speaking, it isn’t. It is usually someone who you’re able to tolerate more than most people yet isn’t a friend of yours. They are something more, something special.

                I remember when this happened to me. Sitting in a crowded room learning Chinese, I saw her. She sat next to me since I was the only other teenager taking beginner’s Chinese. The rest of the class was made up of small children who already spoke Chinese and were taking the class to make me feel stupid, like I should have already known this information. As she sat down, I thought:

                “She looks so cool.”

                Her dress came out of the seventies. When she spoke to me, she had this positively sweet voice. It sounded educated. The education of countless schools I’ve never heard of nor attended. As she wrote down the Pinyin, she wrote down phonetic pronunciations next to next word. Before she left, I asked her what her name was. She told me Sam. I wished I had asked for her phone number, but I forgot to and kicked myself for it.

                One year later her friend Cat approached me. Cat said Sam found me interesting and wanted my email. I had almost forgotten about her. After I gave her my email address, she looked at me like I was crazy. It was such a terrible email address; I’m embarrassed I even had it as an email address.

                Sam emailed me the most articulate proposal for a date ever. I responded with coffee at Starbucks. After I figured out how to get uptown to some previously unknown super-rich area we drank coffee and chatted. While I sat there, she wanted me to ask her questions and pressed me to tell her about myself. Once I finished my coffee, I got back on the train back home. 

Looking at a giant Citibank tower growing out of nowhere as the train came out of the tunnel, I figured I failed. That was the worst experience I had in my entire life. I got home, checked my email, and saw she wanted to meet again. Her emails showed off a certain flair for writing. Mine showed the ability to construct a sentence utilizing basic grammar. 

Together we trained each other. Neither one of us had been in a relationship before. Each one of us overcame certain problems. I learned how to deal with a father who thought I was a worthless idiot though her mother was nicer. She learned the importance of flattering parents with literary references. Her parents thought I was cute though. My parents liked her, but when they first saw her they said “I thought she’d be prettier than that.” Even at that early point in my life, I had learned the important skill of hype. We taught each other all of these important skills and more. 

But it wasn’t meant to be. We grated on one another’s nerves. I didn’t like how she had been to Tibet but didn’t know how to get to Chinatown in lower Manhattan. Our politics clashed. I told her I loved her. Sam said she liked me. From that experience, I learned love is a strong word and like isn’t. Finally, after countless stabs at trying to ignore the other’s relentless ambition to get a perfect SAT score, the other’s ability to laugh through the entire duration of “A Walk to Remember”, and other larger problems we broke it off. 

We broke up over the phone. As she kept on hinting around the idea of breaking up, I bluntly asked:

“Are you trying to break up with me?”

She answered:

“Would you be upset if I said yes?”

I said:

“No, I wouldn’t. You’re free to choose whatever you want.”

The last thing I heard of her voice was:

“Thank you. You’re really nice.” Then she cried a little on the phone before she hung up. 

Everyone has a training boy or a training girl. That way, as you grow older, you’re not a twenty-something who has never been in a relationship. You’re someone who has loved and lost. Maybe next time you’ll be better. Next time things will work out longer. Wait, you’ll see.    

DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM: A review

                 Last time I reviewed something of Steve Roggenbuck’s, it was a smaller sampling. A chapbook called “i am like october when i am dead”. Honestly, I liked and disliked parts of it. This particular one shows off his love of typography, particularly in its exacting font size (80) and type of font (Helvetica, obviously). Being so absolute to its design reminds me a bit of John Barton Wolgamot’s precise standards. Compared to Steve’s previous stuff, there appears to be a great deal more personal detail. That works to his benefit.

                It’s the personal detail which warms me to each poem. Perhaps this was the crucial detail which made me a little cold towards his chapbook. According to his notes on in the book, these are poems from MSN messenger history from High School. Remembering what I was like in High School, I kind of wish I had kept more of those conversations. Going through these, I’m sort of reminded the same kind of feeling I had as a teenager, writing sweet sayings for people I cared about. Upon finishing these, I immediately went into my ‘notes’ section of my personal email to see if I had saved anything from that period in my life. 

                Perhaps it is this exploration of his past relationship which gives it soul. Even the more silly or random elements in the book are related. Together it feels unified a complete whole. Having common themes thread themselves around, like the affectionate phrases he shows towards the recipient of these messages, opens him up a little more to the outside world.

                His work appears to be obsessed with the consumption of vast amounts of TV, irony, and care for others. The first two are considered the death knolls of creative writing. David Foster Wallace claimed Television destroyed a great many writers, many them lazy or overly ironic. Real, genuine emotion couldn’t be properly expressed anymore; it was as if our brains were rewired, unable to cope with human interaction.

                Steve deftly avoids this problem and turns it on its head. Using common phrases and transforming them into poetry shows the actual power language still and can have. A simple bold statement of 

“HA HA AMAZING WHAT SOME PEOPLE ACCOMPLISH”

in and of itself wouldn’t be anything interesting. It sounds a bit cliche in all honesty. Dispersing this with tender pieces like 

“I HOPE THAT WE GET TO STAY TOGETHER AND BE IN LOVE FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME”

gives the reader some idea of the actual relationship these two people had with one another. It reminds me of looking through old Facebook pages, old wall to wall posts. You’d read all this leftover debris from the internet, of a relationship which might not be around anymore. Rather than focusing on the detrimental aspects of online relationships, he focuses on the positive. People tend to remember the bad after the end of a relationship. But that which is left in computers, in person to person messages, is generally positive. Looking back, you see all the good moments you had. It becomes so easy to remember the bad, what lead to the end of a relationship, that you forget the good. The internet serves as an unbiased storage bin of these odds and ends. Steve celebrates that, even the most mundane and seemingly innocuous details. 

                I’d strongly suggest reading the whole thing in one sitting. It isn’t very long so it really shouldn’t be a challenge. The language is simple and easy to understand. Why I suggest reading it in one sitting is to get the full impact. Each piece feeds and adds to the other pieces. Everything is connected, nothing is alone. What appear to be tossed-off statements is actually part of the whole, part of the conversation. The face value boring statement:

“FINAL DESTINATION 3 IS OUT ON DVD” 

gets followed by:

“I WANT TO PICK YOU DAISES AND KISS YOU WHEN I HAND THEM TO YOU”

                Alone, either statement might not have the same impact. The first could be seen as just something ironic or plain pointless. Having it coupled with the next bit allows both to have a greater feeling, a greater emotion. Personally, I felt the sparseness of his chapbook focused more on the former and less on the latter. Each piece in the chapbook felt alone, isolated. Here we have the opposite occurring, and Steve’s language is carefully chosen and placed to have a maximum impact. I consider his approach towards poetry to not be far removed from the Dadaists, who used similar techniques regarding cut-ups. By taking the items out of context, he’s able to reassemble it into something much more interesting. I guess now it is called Flarf poetry with him as one of the better Flarfists. 

                In case you’d like to read this, he offers it completely for free on his minimally designed website. Please go here for further information on how to download and distribute. His obsession with the internet and its capabilities (Google Bombing, Flarfing) now has begun to bear fruit.