I see, you just aren’t able to stick up for a comrade.
And my attitude about my legacy is ‘Fuck it’.
–Rudy Giuliani
Trump didn’t just lose the popular vote — he lost it by a greater margin than any successful presidential candidate in American history.
–Michelle Goldberg
I live in a lonely world,
just trying to survive.
–Alice Carter
I wanted the books to sell at the same price as a packet of 10 cigarettes so that no-one could possibly say they couldn’t afford them.
–Allen Lane
I am from Russia, where everyone can be arrested for anything. But I am not afraid to be arrested. I am afraid not to do enough. And I think and I believe that we can change everything, because behind us there are millions of people, behind us there is the science, and activism is the solution.
–Arshak Makichyan
I sweat on the clock but save my bleeding for the page.
–Rob Kaniuk
From my extensive bible reading, I believe that it will be when God steps in and destroys all of the wicked people. Rev 11:18 says he will bring to ruin those ruining the Earth. So excited for this!
–C.B.
–for Andrew Rihn, writing the stellar The Pugilist at Into The Void
Welp. Guess that’s it Buddy. Another one in the chipper. One more lap closer to the heart of the burning sun. Our demise may be the long kiss goodbye and we’ll have to suffer it by degree. Nothing catastrophic about a sheet of ice sliding off coffers of methane except for a chain reaction that includes the redistribution and exodus of a people that would in effect affect the politic. If you think ISIS has nothing to do with climate change then you’re as wrong as when you thought the bodiless death of Osama Bin Laden would be the end of war or terror. At the end of the day I don’t have much but I didn’t have much at the beginning. I know that in my sister’s garage in Delaware there’s a shoebox full of cassettes in a tote full of fliers, poems and typewritten pages yanked from a Brother Word Processor in the Year of the Snake while living above a carbon leaking furnace in the wilds of West Philly. Other than those pages and journals and countless letters, I’ve nothing but a faith in the work. I believe in the work more than I believe in any job I’ve ever had and though there’s little nutritional value in ink and paper, it’s sustained me more than anything else. I bring up the work because all I’ve ever invested in was a dream, it’s in the ether, so–when the walls come tumbling down I won’t have much to save. Not like I’m gonna drag totes full of poetry and creative non-fiction with me into the shelter and away from armageddon and the melting atmosphere–or that the digital trail of me and the wanderings of my mind, yay the over 72k words here at Going For The Throat, and approximately 25k words at The Coarse Grind could survive anything worse than a power outage either. When I say the work I mean the inner work Bubba and anyway what ol’ Uncle Tom Waits called that feel.
I’ve rebuilt myself from the inside out as a writer and cast myself in turns as heroic and horrid. Either extreme is borne of pure egoism and anyway, as a Pisces love and hate is all there is. I can get there but I can’t arrive until I’ve put some time in at the desk. Know what I mean? I set the scene in writing and better, I sink into the deeper meaning of things. Wisdom is available to me here–things I could never see while on hustle and running for the money and the flesh. This is a deeper work and the only work that really matters to me, though, I still can’t answer why. Why should I go on with this endeavor and continue betting on the muse when we’re only getting closer ain’t it and tumbling diaphanously down? The end of the Antropocene can really put a kink in things psychologically if not catastrophically and otherwise make living on Earth physically impossible. The continuation of the race is a faith that even atheists must retain. Otherwise why get out of bed? Why reach for anything except or beyond filling our holes with foodstuffs and pricks? Why Art and why writing and why the discourse or culture? I got nothing for you man but I’ma do what I’ve always done and that’s craft 6-1,200 words here and another 1,200 at The Coarse Grind, get those letters out especially considering they’ll probably be the only proof I was ever here, and books, because, well–because it’s what I always wanted and all I’ve done for the last 5 years. I bang it out on a machine older than I am, transcribe it on a MacBook that’s getting there and print and bind them thangs and take ’em from town to town.
What else?
Please join Jim Trainer for a very special night of poetry and the spoken word, next Tuesday at A Novel Idea, in celebration of the release of 2031, his sixth full-length collection of poetry. Featuring Rob Kaniuk and Maleka Fruean.
Going for the Throat 