GENRE: Poetry
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BLURB:
Echoing Chuck Palahniuk’s statement. “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known,” this collection explores identity.
These poems drift down rivers of old, using histories private and public and visit people that I love and loathe.
Through heroes and villains, music and cartoons, literature and comics, science and wonder, and shadow and light, each poem canals the various channels of self and invention.
As in the poem, “Credentials,” “I am a collage of memories and unicorn stickers…[by] those that have witnessed and been witnessed.”
Excerpt:
Refurbished
Susan taught me that poetic energy lies
between the lines, white noise scratching
and clawing between images, ideas,
things…
And like a poem,
the chair was molded by my Tio’s hands,
an antique wooden upholstered desk chair.
My Tio moved from Durango, Mexico
to Forth Worth in 1955.
He became a mason and wood worker.
He bricked the stockyards
He built the signs
He died in 2005.
Now,
matted. Worn. Faded floral design. Wood
scarred like healing flesh.
The arms torn, ratted by the heft of his arms
and the stress of the days. The foam peeks
out.
The brass upholstery tacks rusted. I count
1000 of them. With each,
I mallet a fork-tongue driver under its head.
A tap, tap, tapping until it sinks beneath the tack,
until the tack springs from its place.
I couldn’t help but think of a woodpecker.
A tap, tap, tapping into Post Oak,
a rhythm…each scrap of wood falling to the ground
until a home is formed.
Until each piece of wood like the tacks removed
shelter something new.
I remove the staples, the foam, the fabric,
the upholstery straps
until it’s bones.
I sand and stain
until its bones shine.
I layer and wrap its bones with upholstery straps,
foam, fabric, staples and tacks.
New tacks, Brass medallions
adorning the whole, but holding it
all together—
its bones
its memories,
its energy.
Giveaway
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About The Author
Donovan Hufnagle is a husband, a father of three, and a professor of English and Humanities.
He moved from Southern California to Prescott, Arizona to Fort Worth, Texas.
He has five poetry collections: These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them), Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of, The Sunshine Special, Shoebox, and 30 Days of 19.
Other recent writings have appeared in Tempered Runes Press, Solum Literary Press, Poetry Box, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, Subprimal Poetry Art, Americana Popular Culture Magazine, Shufpoetry, Kitty Litter Press, Carbon Culture, Amarillo Bay, Borderlands, Tattoo Highway, The New York Quarterly, Rougarou, and others.
Website: http://www.donovanhufnagle.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donovanhufnagle
Author Interview
Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
I don’t remember having any imaginary friends; however, my favorite childhood book was Where the Wild Things Are.
I did, however, imagine trudging through a forest, floating in space, or fighting monsters in front of my castle.
I did imagine being in places where time didn’t exist, my own wonderland.
My bedroom, my pillows, my sheets, and whatever things I used to project from to imagine with all formed my worlds.
Do you have any phobias?
In my introduction to humanities course, I teach monsters and myths. And one of my lessons involves students trying to attach their biggest fear to a known monster.
In my example, I use clowns. I don’t necessarily have a fear of clowns, but I do dislike them tremendously. The clown that started it all was the doll from the original Poltergeist movie.
There’s a scene in the movie that occurs in the boy’s bedroom, under the bed—You know “that under the bed fear.” well, I have it with clowns.
Anyway, ever since that movie, clowns incite my fear of the unknown and the feeling of powerlessness.
Besides, the duality of hiding their faces with smiles doesn’t make me want to smile; it is too Jekyll and Hyde for me.
This duality does come out in my poetry, too. I have a fascination with duality, especially with heroes and monsters.
The poem “Spanish Fly” deals with my perception of Bill Cosby’s duality as hero and monster. And the poem “Secret Identity” uses superheroes like Superman, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk to illustrate a sense of duality.
Do you listen to music when you’re writing?
Music plays a major role in my life as well in my writing. I don’t really listen to music while I write, but music influences almost all aspects of my writing, including content and form.
My current book These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them) has several poems influenced by blues music and musicians. “The Spirit of Deep Ellum” is a tribute to Blind Lemon Jefferson, for one example.
Lemon would walk to Deep Ellum in Dallas and play on the conners. I also “misuse” song lyrics all the time.
I am sure that you have experienced this, too, but I will sing lines from a song that I thought I knew but really didn’t, and I will use those lines as influence in some of my poems.
Even the experience of music enters my poetry. The poem “Sussudio Saves, The Day After, #6” uses the first five songs I heard in the car after January 6th.
The songs that played from my iTunes: Living On the Edge by Aerosmith, Eye of the Beholder by Metallica, White, Discussions, Territorial Pissings by Nirvana, and Dead Bodies Everywhere by Korn were legitimately the first five songs I heard and the sixth, of course, Sussudio.
Do you ever read your poetry out loud?
Only if I must. Joking. I read them out loud to hear the cadence and rhythm.
Some poems have a stronger musicality to them, but all my poems have some form of rhythm or tempo, a pulse that either moves quickly or slowly.
Certain words, phrases, or lines play fast while others slow the poem down. If it is a traditional formed poem such as the villanelles sprinkled throughout the book, hearing them out loud helps me hear the repetition and to understand how it is working or not working.
I even have a short poem “Chorus” toward the middle of the book. Though the two lined poem “Nothing you imagine is better than the real./Being here and now is all you need to feel” do not represent my overall style of writing (I don’t typically rhyme in poetry), the chorus of the book is about reality and authenticity, weaving fantasy and imagination with an actuality.
It could be “sung” throughout the reading of the book.
Tell us about your theme and what inspired it.
The book These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them) is about identity.
I like to think the poems not only represent the different influences on my life, on my perceptions and thinking in which certain situations or people have formed who I am, they are also representative of my journey as a writer.
Many of the poems use personal experiences that I hope resonate with those that read the book. I think we all have had childhood loves or childhood dislikes, for example.
Or maybe we have had issues with family—fathers, mothers, siblings, or other. If anything, I hope readers can see how exposing and revealing these poems are.
The other poems use influences from the outside like influences from pop culture that shape identity. From the personal to the public, these poems tell the story of identity.
At the same time, I use many different forms and styles of poetry that have shaped my own style of writing. I would argue that this latest book uses more variations of style and forms than any of my previous works.
