W
HEN THE PACKAGE ARRIVED, the temperature outside was already hovering at around 105 degrees. There is no air-conditioning in the sub- level communist compound where we live.
I was already naked. Frankie Metro only put on his clothes to go check the mail. Twenty-five minutes later, we peeled our sweaty bodies apart...
It was an attention deficit lightning round- trying to write a review of her book while flipping through the stockpile of cock shots, lick fits, rim angles and top grade writing.
The fat manilla envelope contained assorted zines, including several copies of
Central Avenue Poetry Magazine from years 2004 and 2007.
As he flipped through
Pussy Licking Good, Frankie Metro said:
“Though she’s definitely not the first to do it, she’s a genius to combine poetry and porn. Your left eye is looking at the poem and your right eye is looking at the porn.”
I asked him:
“But what about your hands?"
“Your right hand is in your pants, on your junk and your left is tight on the pen- the subject within reach.” He stopped, put the book down and stared into the corner of the ceiling. Suddenly he asked (no one in particular):
“But what about your nuts?”
He continued:
“Your left nut is cold, because it’s on the floor while your right nut is stuck on the fictitious bitch located at the right side of your left brain.”
As for me, like any other woman, I am secretly turned on by everything from lesbian bondage porn to mating
bonobos ( Ask Meredith Chiver’s PHD about that... )
Yet, Frankie inadvertently made a good point. Yes, even the most illiterate trucker could flip through a Misti Rainwater-Lites publication and find something to enjoy.
It is a damned sexy anthology, dating back to 2006. At that point, I'd never heard of these authors; not Brian Fugett or JD Nelson, not Karl Koweski, S.A. Griffin, or even "the funniest man alive":
Tim Murray.
Even though we were living in the same city, I had never heard of Misti Rainwater-Lites for fuck's sake, and now, here she was, strewn out over our bed, cognitively naked, and dripping wet with an orgy of poets who I had come to know and others I was sure needed a venereal screening in the immediate future.
The cover of
Pussy Licking Good had a picture of a cat in a birthday hat, eating a cake with a fork. The illustrations included the usual collage art featuring cans of spam and dolls, a large amount of tits, and assorted vintage lesbian photos.
It was an attention deficit lightning round- trying to write a review of her book while flipping through the stockpile of cock shots, lick fits, rim angles and top grade writing.
***
As for Misti’s latest book
Expired Nickel Valentine, I can only guess what kind of photography and artwork it contains because I’m reading a PDF version and my
MAC won’t show the images.
(Misti frequently relies on Barbie dolls as models for her photography; sometimes depicted engaging in sex acts with aliens who apparently ejaculate something that looks like it came from a silver paint marker.)
***
In the first poem of the book,
Fixed Channel, her identification with dolls is addressed.
The poem ends with this stanza:
Lately I am becoming plastic, I am hardening,
I am becoming more doll
all blinking and cute and little as possible.
It's the least
I can do.
Expired Nickel Valentine has a strong autobiographical aspect to it. Not only are the poems themselves deeply personal, but in between poems, she provides synoptic background on what was going on in her life as she wrote it.
As for her doll obsession, she says:
“I photographed Barbie and Ken dolls trying to express my rage, my spiritual starvation, my suicidal ideations through creative photographs of those dolls in various stages of desecration and abuse.” (p. 15)
She speaks of at least seventeen heartbreaks that inspired her reliably dark and frequently humorous creations. From one poem to the next, the reader can’t be sure whether to laugh, cry, masturbate, or punch a hole in the wall.
***
I appreciate Misti mostly for her absurdity and surrealistic style. But also, there is a resolve in her humor that I find reassuring as a writer. Inside Misti's collective body of work, you find a cause to endure, and a blank expression that speaks ten thousand tongues of fuck and the fucked alike.
Masturbation Guilt continues...
