try to comfort yourself by thinking, cows don’t know about him

April 17, 2018 1:53 PM

Tricia Lockwood is here to answer- How do we write now. A new work in Tin House.

Author of Priestdaddy (previously) and Mefi's own has had her work previously featured here, although election filter buried this article from the Trump campaign and long before that was Rape Joke (mefi), which, with the Awl shutdown you can now find over on the Web Archive.

posted by zenon (9 comments total)

I am thinking of the most sacred headspace of all, which exists in absolute opposition to the thick loud smog of the present. That is the headspace of the first book. Before anything happens. The air there is so thin and sharp and keeps you in a kind of exquisite pain. It is crowded with flowers, which open into red throats like tiger lilies, ready to speak.

I love her writing, and am always glad to see it here.
posted by Gorgik at 3:26 PM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Read diaries, which make the day permanent. Read anything that slows you down to the pace of real life, like Zora Neale Hurston’s preservations of dialect that walk in dresses down dirt roads. Read one of those Annie Dillard books where she watches an ant fuck for like fourteen straight hours and at the end of it somehow believes in God even more than she did already.

Damn I love Lockwood. Damn I love Dillard.
posted by Grandysaur at 3:47 PM on April 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah I've just had this tab open on my phone for the last few days. I may keep it there forever.
posted by little cow make small moo at 4:51 PM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Simply scrolling down and seeing this title, I knew who it was referring to.

It was referring to cows.

Also that other guy
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:49 PM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

everyone thinks they are dumbo
posted by kliuless at 8:58 PM on April 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

That if you’re trying to write through a wall you’re not alone.

Thank you.
posted by limeonaire at 10:41 PM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just as your face has been replaced by a question mark immediately followed by an exclamation mark immediately followed by another question mark.
I use that combination way too frequently in my writing. The exclamation mark makes a great nose.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:05 PM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thank you very much for sharing this.
posted by davidjmcgee at 6:25 AM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Think about what isn’t in poetry yet that you could put here."

brb have to go get a massive banner printed and hang it on my wall
posted by davidjmcgee at 6:33 AM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]