Repugno Selects is a new blogzine for visual poetry / word art / text objects “” as they intervene in the world. Each issue, Repugno the editor, gives us an interesting collection of graffiti, and things like graffiti to enjoy. His criteria: the visual poetry cannot appear on a page. Instead, the art featured ere is printed on brick walls, tacked onto phone booths, and discovered in alleyways. Repugno calls this kind of stuff "Vispo in the World". (Vispo, of course, is short for "visual poetry".) The criteria for Repugno Selects also serves as a good definition of what is meant by "Vispo in the World". Read on.

I like how language degrades & layers are revealed. I like unreadable graffiti, stencil slogans, wrapped telephone poles. All similar forms of ‘street publishing. This magazine is for documenting poetic work in the public sphere or work given away/left in public. I do not wish to see page-based work for the most part - exceptions are possible - but not that easy to imagine. Visual Poetry for me has to connect to text, readability is not necessary, but language is required (no matter how degraded). Artfulness I appreciate careful technique, a painterly eye, work that doesn’t sacrifice some kind of discipline, but, I also thrive on accidents. The Hand in the Work. So much work is computer-based now that I find myself liking the handmade or hand-assisted works, they’re consistently more real for me. B/W-ish i tend in the direction of black and white and appreciate those who can use just enough color or who let the colors of the materials carry the weight. Monochromes. Sepia. A starkness that has impact. Send Your Work If you think you have work that would work for me, send it.

Poetry often gets the spotlight when it comes cross-genre experiments because it is naturally one to hybridity with fiction (hello, prose-poetry) and visual art. But what about creative nonfiction? Does this genre experiment? 

Of course, experimentation can entire storytelling and form. 

A couple months ago, Electric Lit published an essay by Alice Lesperance called “Carmen Maria Machado Has Invented a New Genre: the Gothic Memoir.”  

By focusing on Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir, In the Dream House, Lesperance explores how this novel’s blurs its creative nonfiction genre with gothic, playwriting, and “Choose Your Own Adventure” conventions (see image below). 

Oh, and the novel itself is about an abusive relationship, reflecting on terror and tramua. Lesperance does a great job showing how memoir can blur genre. 

Image of Machado’s book cover.

Side note: I haven’t read Machado’s book itself…I stumbled on Leperance’s essay on it when perusing Electric lit. But Machado’s memoir is definitely on my reading list now!

An Unlikely Pair: the Memoir and the Gothic
Gothic literature and creative nonfiction share many similarities. Mainly, I’m thinking about subject and tone. According to Lesperance, 

Surely, no genre is more ripe for gothicizing than the memoir. To write about yourself is to double yourself, and looking back at your own life with present-you eyes is definitely uncanny. The point in a memoir at which we confront the worst parts of our memory is the ultimate descent: into trauma, into the bottom floors of our minds, into madness.

Gothic literature is (usually) about monsters, murder, and secrets. It is Romanticism’s dark side, poking at the question: what happens if people act on their darkness?

The Guardian published a handy-dandy guide, “How to tell you’re reading a gothic novel – in pictures,” illustrating gothic literature (see image below). Check it out if you want to clear more about (or remember) gothic literature’s qualities. You’ll start to see how similar memories and gothic literature are. 

Because memoirs dig into past traumas and encounter hidden monsters, they mimics gothic literature’s elements. Writers descend into their darkness, reliving and evoking  personal gloom. Memoirs are thus conducive to exploring all things scary and painful. 

Turns out, the gothic and memoirs are indeed an unlikely pair. They are co-conspirators. Lesperance notes that “in memoir, the gothic can take new forms in ways that reinvent a centuries-old genre.” It’s a gothic revival that fits the needs of memories and the demands of contemporary readerships.

It’s what Machado does. She invents a new blurred form through which trauma can be explored.   

Another Pea in the Pod: Playwriting
Machado doesn’t just gothicize her novel. She also uses playwriting conventions to accentuate tension. 

 According to Lesperance,

The construction and style of playwriting is the perfect way to show what is so hard to describe: that trauma objectifies us in the strangest ways, that we can feel like figures moved around on stage by something unseen.

Machado’s blurring of form (memoir with playwriting) allows her to literally show a sense’s emotional pitch. 

Although the playwriting convention seems to happen in only one scene, it definitely gives Machado’s imagery some drama. Now, I can’t help but wonder what a memoir would look like if it merged prose and playwriting throughout. 

But Wait, There’s More: Footnotes and an Interactive Element
That’s not all Machado does. As Lesperance describes, Machado also includes footnotes “directing us to an encyclopedia of folk motifs,” and ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ moments to “give us the allusion that we can control something that’s already happened even though it will remain unchanged.”

This interactive element adds an imaginative “what-if” to memory, mimicking the mind’s corridors. Meanwhile, the footnotes expand the narrative’s context in the real world. It something to try when blurring creative nonfiction with other genres!

So, Who’s In?
How else can creative nonfiction blur genre? That’s all I can think about after reading Lesperance’s essay. 

If you’re looking to write a memoir or a creative nonfiction piece, why not try to weave in gothic elements? It may make dealing with and reflecting on trauma easier. It may even give your form and narration texture and intrigue. 

Likewise, why not blur genres? Why not use playwriting techniques, add footnotes, or include photos? Hey, create crosswords if you’d like!

The page is your stage, and poetry shouldn’t have all the fun.

Poets and spoken word performers from all over the United States are getting ready for the National Poetry Slam this August. Among them, Baltimore’s own slam poetry team, from the Slamicide poetry slam. This year’s team will be coaxed toward victory by SlamMaster Chris August, whose slam poem appears in the latest issue of Infinity’s Kitchen, by the way. If you can’t make it to the National Poetry Slam, then check out a slam in your town. In our town, Baltimore, the slam is in a new night this year, in a new location. Cheer them on! National Poetry Slam [via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ]