Scott C. Holstad

Were We Reading the same Poems?

Mr. Holstad,
Your poems succeeded in offending everyone on our staff. You represent everything we despise in contemporary poetry, everything that is “wrong” with poetry today. We strongly suggest you seek counselling immediately in order to address your violent and misogynistic attitudes.
Sincerely,

 

• Originally appeared in Sivullinen 16, 1994. [Print magazine published in Finland]

 

I Can’t Help It

I’d rather be Richard Ramirez
than Jorie Graham,
all traffic and sleep,
a broken errancy.

I’d rather sell drugs to rabbis
than wait patiently
for some sullen editor
with a dead-end mind
to tell me I’ve won
an aquamarine watercolor
for my perfect poem,
“Sunset at Deer Lake.”

I want people to read
my poetry and try not
to puke, to vomit, to cry.
Poetry can exist
to disturb
to punish
to torment
show what’s real, man.
None of that weakass
bullshit for me.

I want people to
wail
gnash their teeth
pound each other
with real words
when they read
my poems,
all guns death drugs
despair, life as I
know, have lived
and will it to be.

Shudder wild beauty,
for this is a fantastic
freakshow – ain’t
my garden of flowers
and love, pity, and
grandeur.

I do not wish to kill
poetry, but to blow
it through every
damn roof till the last
junkie’s dead, till THEY
have gotten us all, till
we’ve hung overdoses
on the edge, the words,
the poem.

 

Scott C. Holstad has authored 50+ books & has appeared in the Minnesota Review, Exquisite Corpse, Santa Clara Review, Long Shot, Bouillabaisse, Kerouac Connection, Main Street Rag, Misfit, Ginosko Literary Journal, Big Windows Review, Pearl, Wormwood Review & Chiron Review. He lives in Gettysburg with his family & his website is at https://hankrules2011.com.