bg-episode-14_recording-1_2024-06-12--t10-02-55pm--christian

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I'm here for you, I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. That's an elegy for Julius Gah. Even though I've seen the scene well over 30 times and know how it ends, I still have hope in myself this will be the time some miracle will reach through the screen and save him. Though he face death on the ashen clavicle of that Manhattan building before the lone audience of the moon, he will somehow will his exhausted body into slipping that fatal Sunday punch to escape free, unsmudged and alive. Perhaps it is just the world refusing to let me be, to stay out of my head for the run time of the film, but I also cannot help thinking about the other black boys not hired by a casting director to be rendered headless on film. Those now forever anchored to being young, whose families were elected by the God of Circumstance to carry the murders of their sons, or fathers, or brothers, the remainder of their days. How many times have I seen the soul of someone black exit the pores of their tiny mosques of muscle and flesh, vacating this life? Each of their final moments was a horror film I did not pay to see and cannot let go of. In some way, isn't this the nature of being black in America? Always residing so close to terror we are wounded, but never surprised when it pitches one of us into the limbo of its maw. Me, I want the alternate ending. Not just for Julius, but for all the other young black men buried in my brain, each one tucked into the pink soil of my mind. I want the alternate ending. A burst of lightning blossoms and brings them life again, and they gaze into the black eyes of their fates and say, take your best shot, motherfucker, before punching their hands bloody, staving off the afterlife's hungry invitation. I want the alternate ending where they find their ways back into the graces of their most loved. In the distance, night bleeds away and a brand new beginning sets upon them. As the credits cascade down the screen, the language left on their breath is the antithesis of horror, of anything close to horror. Maybe we can make something happen. I don't know. All right. So this is like twenty nineteen. And and I think I think that there was like a I don't think this was around Halloween. I think that there was just like a Friday the 13th at some point in the year. So I'm watching it and this one is on. Jason takes Manhattan is on. And I've seen a movie like so many times. And for some reason, it just just pops into my head that I was like. It would be really interesting if somebody wrote poems about like the black characters in horror movies. And then like a couple of days later, I start writing this poem. And, you know, I just I, I wasn't one. I never really have expectations when I write. I'm just like just moving language around. And then when I got to that, that first shift in it, I was like, oh, wait, there's there's something here that, you know, probably has some legs to it. Let me let me just continue chasing. So it came out as kind of a surprise. And so it's like, I wonder what else I can get. So I wrote I wrote one about Candyman. I wrote one about Blackula. It's not in the chapbook, but it's out there on the Internet. On the Internet, people can find it. And so I was like, man, this is a really interesting thing, because it allows me to kind of hit different things and kind of like disarm people and write further into surprise, which is really important to me. And, yeah, so it's become like one of my favorite poems just to, you know, put in the air in front of people. And I especially love the line, Each of the final moments of the horror film, I cannot forget about Blackula. Because I feel like that line is where it really struck home for me. Because, you know, this is where, you know, we're getting on the scene. And that's like, that's really profound. And I think eventually that's what, you know, that's what we want. All these things that are happening in real time are affecting you in real ways, but like very like psyche wise. And I just think that's really interesting. And you have, you know, poems in here that also have like blackouts. Kind of like, you know, you're not keeping the pool of the pool alive. So I think that I think. Yeah. So that's a really interesting point for what's your enemy, what's your enemy, what's your enemy's poem that you would like to use? I mean, I have a poem. Oh, what do you got? Throw it at me. Yeah, absolutely. So I feel like because we're talking about horror, this this kind of pulls from like, this is like the first two Candyman movies, right? Because the first one obviously is really centered around Cabrini Green in Chicago. But in the second one, we get like more of the mythology where his roots are in the South. Right. So Candyman Blues, I don't want anybody being like this was inaccurate. Candyman Blues. Also, it's a persona poem written as Daniel Robitaille. Think of the commitment it takes to call any one name five consecutive times. Think of the desire at the heart of making it a mantra. What they call me is a sacred word built on blues and blood like any black man born and buried in the South. They say Candyman enough times and I am obliged to appear because they made a god out of me. How can I not come when summoned, when prayed to? How can I not grant them their wish to see my face, mine the last they'll see, mine their god away from this life? Many call me monster. Who made me into one? What name should we ascribe to those whose brutality transformed me? If I am what they say I am, it is because I did not know my place back then. Because I made love to a white woman, molded a daughter in the kiln of her womb. Before I became a monster on their tongues, I was the monster drinking in their sun. Now my place is in the dark. The shadows and I keep company until the anxious chant of a curious mouth calls me out. Now I live in the whispers of my congregation, in the quiet notes of their barely breathed hymns. One of the things I love about poetry is that it is an art form that is so rooted in breath. And on the page, we can show the reader where we want them to breathe. Or where we want them to kind of hang out for a little bit. And, you know, some of it is to kind of suspend time. Some of it is to add a little bit of tension. But it's really like I feel that my role is to kind of guide you as the reader into how to consume the information. And so, yeah, I feel like Sejura are really like interesting characters into the poems. I think that the container of a poem is really important, too. But also I think that, you know, when we're looking at text, because I had this like I had this epiphany also in 2019 that really kind of changed the way that I saw everything. But also I feel like, you know, like text is a very malleable thing. And I think that there are well, there's a saying that like no matter how much you love poems, you're always looking for a reason to stop reading a poem. And I think that if that's true, then how can I how can I reward your time that if you read this thing once or twice or right. So each time you come kind of coming back and getting something new out of it. Like most of the poems in the chapbook, you can read from the first line to the last and then from the last line to the first. And so it's almost like you get two poems, you know, each way. So I don't know. I just I just think that it's a really interesting thing that, you know, we as the supreme deities of our poetic universes, we have all of this power. So it's like, well, why not? Why not try to use some of it? Oh, yeah. I've been I've been really blessed, man. Like this this one I love. And then the cover of my my forthcoming collection, I think this is really great, too. And the fact that we are to get the rights to both of them, I just like, man, I'm over the moon. So. I kind of wanted to really like, again, I wanted to end off with a few questions that you also threw out. Who are the monsters in your life? In what ways have you been a monster to yourself or others? Who is someone that you terrify or haunt with you? Yes. So the easiest way to stay up with me is my website. It's Christian J. Call your dot com. It's got my link tree on there, which, you know, will take you to all the different things and all my other socials on Instagram and Twitter. It always be Twitter to me. But beyond that, I mean, I am I've got my my full length debut coming on September 15th. We're doing pre-orders right now. It's called Greater Ghost. The whole thing is kind of an examination of who and what is a ghost. I feel like all of us, each time we enter a room, we're bringing any given number of ghosts with us. Right. And not just like people who've passed, like the person that you wish you'd kissed in like eighth grade. That is a ghost to you. So it's really getting in all of that. And that's coming out. And just really kind of preparing for that. And because I think that it's a I don't know, it's a really vulnerable process, you know, putting something out in the world. And so trying to wrap my head around all that. Beyond that, I'm doing the MFA thing. I'm working my way in a very strange manner. I've got like the books and everything out, you know, before the. But, yeah, so I can I can hopefully teach at the collegiate level and talk poems and everything else with folks. So. I mean, I'm open to things. Yeah, yeah. I'm halfway through. I got enough. I'm deep enough in that that I can adjunct at this point. So. Yeah, but by this time next year, I'll be I'll be the done so. Oh, yeah. Sure. I mean, some of the best times of my life have been had in basements, and this is this is definitely in the conversation. So I'm really honored to be here and to hang out with you. And I look forward to the basement baby that that's coming to. So. All right, thank you. OK.