Simeon Berry

from Fingerling Lakes

Club

The scuffed graffiti’d space

reeks like a vampire’s armpit

amaretto sweated out

into powdered velvet

but we drove

two hours to get here

and my third

woozy screwdriver

only cost $3

The frontman

has too pretty a chin

to be singing

about a river of puke

but Jay loves the band’s zine

its rants about spigots

of insurance blood

and suburban husbands

cinching their ties

around the necks

of their blown-out wives

But his parents

are gentle

and always lay out

whole-grain crackers

and the orange camouflage

of Colby Jack

He jostles against

the other shaven people

in the pit

and lurches near a petite girl

with a razor cut

that makes her look

unfinished

He spends more time

ripping his jeans

than wondering why

I like rhombuses more

than parallelograms

I want a comfy

shirt that smells like

my 4th grade rabbit

For Mom to focus

on something other

than Biblical antagonists

I’d like Dad to stop

worshiping the angry

grass astronauts

hitting each

other every

Sunday afternoon

To come back

from the 7th dimension

of weak beer

and shadowy bankers

The spasming bassist

is giving me a headache

and the acid

in the orange juice

stings where I bit my tongue

The nine-minute song

bleeds into ten

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Simeon Berry

from Fingerling Lakes

Club

The scuffed graffiti’d space

reeks like a vampire’s armpit

amaretto sweated out

into powdered velvet

but we drove

two hours to get here

and my third

woozy screwdriver

only cost $3

The frontman

has too pretty a chin

to be singing

about a river of puke

but Jay loves the band’s zine

its rants about spigots

of insurance blood

and suburban husbands

cinching their ties

around the necks

of their blown-out wives

But his parents

are gentle

and always lay out

whole-grain crackers

and the orange camouflage

of Colby Jack

He jostles against

the other shaven people

in the pit

and lurches near a petite girl

with a razor cut

that makes her look

unfinished

He spends more time

ripping his jeans

than wondering why

I like rhombuses more

than parallelograms

I want a comfy

shirt that smells like

my 4th grade rabbit

For Mom to focus

on something other

than Biblical antagonists

I’d like Dad to stop

worshiping the angry

grass astronauts

hitting each

other every

Sunday afternoon

To come back

from the 7th dimension

of weak beer

and shadowy bankers

The spasming bassist

is giving me a headache

and the acid

in the orange juice

stings where I bit my tongue

The nine-minute song

bleeds into ten

Simeon Berry

What are 2 - 3 books (regardless of genre) that you've read over the last year or less that really blew your hair back? ​

The most amazing books I’ve read recently have been Kiki Petrosino’s Witch Wife (Sarabande), Diane Seuss’ Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf Press), and Mary Ruefle’s On Imagination (Sarabande).

Who is someone you admire who does work that you feel benefits your community and what kind of work is it that they do?

I have tremendous respect for Matthew Henriksen.  In addition to being a fabulous poet and one of the editors of Typo, his public presence is for me a model for how to be authentic in the literary world: political without being toxic, confessional without being exploitive, entertaining without being glib.  The courage and openness with which he charted his recovery online raised the stakes not only for me as a writer, but also as a person, and I have been deeply moved by his work with inmates on Death Row as part of the Prison Story Project.  In a cultural economy that is too often composed mostly of throw-away lines and personal branding, Matthew’s generous advocacy for poetry and social justice is both uncompromising and humane, and I am so very glad that he exists in the world.

What's the weirdest thing an audience member has ever done before, during or after one of your readings?

During one reading, a visibly-bored teen rolled up the magazine he was holding and peered at me through it as if through a telescope.

Star Destroyer or Enterprise?

Gotta go with the Star Destroyer.  The Enterprise has always felt to me like being inside an empty drug store.

How do/did you feel when you re-read your earl books/work?

Since I lived with my first two books for 12 and 7 years, respectively, they’re like exes that I’m still friends with.  As for the 800 poems that I wrote before that, they’re more like the uncle with the loud tie and the whoopee cushion at family holidays who gets drunk on peppermint schnapps.