This is Frank Reardon’s second full-length collection of poetry. Reardon, 39, grew up in Boston and currently lives in the Badlands of North Dakota where he has been able to dry out and put his life into perspective. He says candidly of Nirvana Haymaker, ‘A lot of those poems were written after I locked myself away in North Dakota. There's not much vice around me up here, nor distraction. I was drying out, getting on track, dealing with the pain of my past, writing out the pain, until I got to the point where I could tell the pain to go to hell.’ Reardon’s collection is difficult to nail down. It is an eclectic mix of raw, free verse poems which have spilled randomly from Reardon’s creative fount. In his ongoing search for a credible voice, he experiments with subject matter, language features and forms and uses a wide range of styles and perspectives.
The book’s striking, predominantly burgundy cover jacket, was
designed by Milo Duffin and Stephen Roxborough. The main focus is on a set of
boxing gloves dangling from a wire mesh fence. As Reardon explains in the
extended interview which follows this review, the boxing gloves represent a
metaphor for the tough personal battles he has faced and how they have shaped
his determination now to never give up: ‘Maybe I like doing things the hard
way, but nothing in my life ever came easy. I don't think it does for most
people, but in with my own personal experience, it has always been a fight. I
think the cover portrays that- the two boxing gloves over a picture of Boston.
I grew up in Boston, lived most of my life there. It's where I learned to
fight, where I learned to never give up.’ Reardon reveals the genesis of the
title, ‘The title "Nirvana Haymaker" like anything else in my life
sort of just popped into my head one day. I had an uncle who was a gold gloves
boxer in the military. He taught me, almost every day, how to punch and block.
He taught me how to be a fighter not only of the flesh, but also of the mind
and of the heart.’
Boxing and writing are inextricably linked in Reardon’s
world. In writing Nirvana Haymaker Reardon
absorbs a lot of punishment and takes a tumble or two in exposing his
vulnerabilities as a fledgling writer, but he also counterpunches, and lands the occasional haymaker.
In ‘Some Are Afraid of the Pain’ he describes the process of writing like
taking a ‘bear trap off his heart’. In ‘Earning Respect’ he speaks from real-lived
experience when he compares the reception of his poetry to knocking down his
father for the first time: ‘you’ve got to be able/ to know how to take/ the
beating & bruising/ that he is going/ to inflict on you/ when he finally
stands/ back up’. In the micropoem ‘I Don’t Care How You Write’, he offers the
reader some practical, hard won advice: ‘if the gods are not doubled over/
& clenching their guts/ from the “jabs” you/ just threw at your/
typewriter, then/ it’s not/ a poem’. In ‘They Prepare Too Much’ he suggests through
another boxing analogy that writing needs to have a raw, spontaneous feel about
it to breath life into the word, ‘when you tape up/ your knuckles,/ you only/
give the words/ a chance/ to escape you’.
One of the best poems in the collection ‘Go Fifteen With the
Typewriter Before the Gods Ring the Bell’ features a clever extended metaphor
which compares boxing with doing fifteen rounds with a typewriter. Reardon explicitly
suggests that it takes great skill and tenacity, not only to ‘keep on your
guard’ but to produce immortal lines of great beauty:
Go
Fifteen With the Typewriter
Before
the Gods Ring the Bell
It won’t smile at you
before landing
a haymaker
keep on your guard
keep on your guard
keep the gloves up at your chin
& learn how to counter
with all of your might
wisdom & courage,
if you don’t
you’ll never be able
to go toe-to-toe with it
because it dances the mat
with a mighty fury
jabbing
crossing
hooking
leaving you bloody
& lifeless.
if you can go toe-to-toe
with it
you need a lot of stamina
because if you
can keep up
you’ll be dipping & punching
with concertos
weaving & upper-cutting
with the heavens
& if it goes down
for the count
it will only be
because you
learned to throw
the most
beautiful punches
the world
has ever
thrown.
(reprinted with the author’s
permission)
Reardon spent many years on the road
between 2001-2009 in what he refers to as his ‘Lost Greyhound Years’. They
were not wasted! He accumulated material for his writing. The five page poem ’10
Years’ captures acutely how he precariously clung to his sanity by ‘shouting
love/ to every/ piece of dust/ that fell from/ every ceiling fan’s/ repetitive
heartbeat’. He says of this period, ‘I did a lot of listening and people
watching. I learned the movements of human beings, I learned the sounds they
make, I learned the silent words that come from a person's face when they look
at their shitty paycheck. I learned about the poetry that's found in the dish
soap and the poems that are found in the rag that dries the plates.’
In more general terms, Reardon sees writing as freeing him ‘from the mundane’, of offering him hope when his life was shit: ‘It helped me wake up at 5 am, it helped me cut the sides of beef or to serve the people booze. During the worst of times, when I thought my life was crap, when I thought it was all but done, I'd come home and find out that a poem was published, or someone liked my chapbook, those things kept me going.’
In more general terms, Reardon sees writing as freeing him ‘from the mundane’, of offering him hope when his life was shit: ‘It helped me wake up at 5 am, it helped me cut the sides of beef or to serve the people booze. During the worst of times, when I thought my life was crap, when I thought it was all but done, I'd come home and find out that a poem was published, or someone liked my chapbook, those things kept me going.’
Some of the best poems in the
collection derive from Reardon’s close observations of people. These poems are
characteristically written in an underground, free verse style from Reardon’s
point of view. His portraits include his parents, other close relatives and quirky
people he has met. The poems are told in a conversational tone direct to the
reader, include direct speech and are often best read aloud. They are narrated in
a matter-of-fact, no bullshit way and without jabbing our ribs with some obvious or facile moral lesson.
The characters are revealed for who they are with all their vulnerabilities
dangling.
There are no neatly tied up or cute endings in Reardon’s poetry- just the gut-wrenching futility of messed-up lives with the occasional piss of hope. People learn to deal with the vicissitudes of their lives in different ways. In ‘The Mortal Kids’ a high school kid hangs himself after his girlfriend dumps him, in ‘Roselle’s Morning’ an arthritic woman dulls her pain by listening to radio sermons, in ‘Burnt Girl’ a deformed woman shows the speaker, presumably Reardon, a photo of herself as a girl before the fire, in ‘Gaining Wisdom’ a drunk lesbian tells Reardon that she is after ‘a nice hard one’ and in ‘3 Quarters for Ol’ Blind Chester’ a blind busker plays his guitar in the local mall and stoically reflects on the nature of existence.
There are no neatly tied up or cute endings in Reardon’s poetry- just the gut-wrenching futility of messed-up lives with the occasional piss of hope. People learn to deal with the vicissitudes of their lives in different ways. In ‘The Mortal Kids’ a high school kid hangs himself after his girlfriend dumps him, in ‘Roselle’s Morning’ an arthritic woman dulls her pain by listening to radio sermons, in ‘Burnt Girl’ a deformed woman shows the speaker, presumably Reardon, a photo of herself as a girl before the fire, in ‘Gaining Wisdom’ a drunk lesbian tells Reardon that she is after ‘a nice hard one’ and in ‘3 Quarters for Ol’ Blind Chester’ a blind busker plays his guitar in the local mall and stoically reflects on the nature of existence.
Reardon’s dark childhood memories about
his extended family provide the bulk of his best narrative portrait poems. These
poems rely on the fleshing out of painful anecdotes burrowed deep in his hide.
‘10 a.m. Valiums’,‘Linoleum Prison’ and ‘Knocking Down Towers of Blocks’ are
harrowing poems which represent his mother’s dysfunction, including her battle
with alcohol and prescription drugs. ‘The Ball Breaker’ presents an
unsympathetic, abusive portrait of his drill sergeant father. In ‘When You
Don’t Pat the VIG’ his Uncle Jimmy is shot and lies ‘shirtless/ under a pile of
leaves’. ‘Steal Home’ begins as a fond recollection of his Aunt Barbara playing
baseball with the kids in her late 50s but ends in her tragic death through her drinking of mentholated spirits. In ‘Gardens Grow All Kinds of Things’ his
grandfather is depicted as a brutal, impatient and unfaithful man. The tone in
these poems is remarkably consistent and Reardon maintains a detached
perspective which allows readers to develop their own inferences on how these
events have shaped him as a man and writer.
Another highlight for me in Nirvana Haymaker were two poems Reardon
wrote about his home town Boston, ‘Boston Irish’ and, probably the best poem in
the collection, ‘Tobin Bridge’. ‘'Boston Irish' is a stirring tribute to the
tough working class Irish men who helped build the city. They are the unsung
heroes of the city and Reardon proudly identifies with them, ‘These people, my
people,/ have always been called the quiet ones,/ stuck in manifested silence,/
spoken with a nod, a punch, or from the ale glass.’ The lyrical ‘Tobin Bridge’
is more ambitious in scope. This is a love poem directly addressed to the
bridge which crosses Mystic River. The bridge is personified as a wise ‘barrel chested warrior’ who has
guarded the ‘proud, filthy and marvelous Boston’. The bridge becomes an emblem
for the history and toil of the working class ‘who ached agony/ into your
backbone.’
Reardon projects a tough guy persona
and often holds his fists close to his face, not giving too much away
emotionally. As he says in ‘A letter to Whitey’, ‘I know about/ hitting it/
over & over/ With a confession/ of strictly trained/ muscles,// pulverizing
it/ until the idea/ of running/ is no longer/ an option’. Yet under that
thick-skin there lies the scared boy in 'The Little Boy' who wants to come out and be accepted by the poet. The boy represents
Reardon’s conscience, the keeper of his long buried love.
Nirvana
Haymaker is a solid but challenging
collection of diverse and interesting poems. Frank Reardon is a tireless and highly
committed poet whose tenacity in pursuing the word should be an example to us
all. His enthusiasm and openness in sharing his ideas about his writing craft at
length are invigorating. Reardon is continuing to develop
as a writer and it will be interesting to see what flows from his well in the
future.
INTERVIEW
WITH FRANK REARDON 13 APRIL 2013
BIO:
Frank Reardon
was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts and spent his first 28 years living
there. Since then, he has lived all over the country, in places such as
Alabama, Kansas City and Rhode Island. He currently lives in the Badlands of
North Dakota, still looking for a way to get out. Frank has been published in
various reviews, journals and online zines. His first book, Interstate
Chokehold, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009. Frank is in the
process of completing a third poetry collection and intends to take up
additional prose/fiction writing and perhaps clay pigeon shooting.
Frank can
you briefly explain your first experiences with poetry and how you initially
became interested in writing the stuff?
My first experience with poetry was
not much different than anyone else. I first got it in high school, and to be
honest, I hated it at the time. I had to learn about the old English poets, or
about rhyme and meter- I even remember being forced to write rhyming poetry as
well. This is not to say there are not some good poets out there who use rhyme,
there are some, like Jeffers and Dylan Thomas, but I was not introduced to
them, and forget about the oriental poets, or the modern poets, or the
narrative poets. My first real experiences with poetry worked out much like the
gathering of a record collection. I read novels and I found out they wrote
poetry too. When I found something that spoke to me like Kerouac or Creeley I would
move onto what moved them- then I would discover d.a. levy, or Bukowski, William
Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara and so forth, I was then hooked on the stuff. I
tried going to open mics but most of the time, 95% of the time, I couldn't find
anything that moved me, not like the books I was reading. I went onto myspace
and joined some pompous group who put their nose up at everything, that also
turned me off, of groups that is. Then I discovered some people like Scott
Wannberg, S.A. Griffin and David Smith, all three would eventually become
mentors and friends to me. I also discovered people my age doing amazing stuff like John Dorsey, Jason Hardung and Rob Plath;
all three eventually became friends of mine. Through all these meetings I was
able to discover what was going on underneath all the B.S. I discovered other
people, though vastly different, they were doing their own things, speaking
from their hearts, speaking of their lives, whatever formula they used was of no
consequence to me, I just liked what they were saying. In many ways they upped
my game, they helped me be a better writer just by reading their stuff and
giving readings with them.
You have experienced a wide variety of jobs, including
butcher, fork lift driver and bartender between 2001-2009. Can you describe the
impact your various occupations and travels have had on the development of your
writing?
Yeah, I am a jack of all trades,
there's probably not a blue collar job I cannot do. Besides checking out the
girls and clock watching, I did a lot of listening and people watching. I
learned the movements of human beings, I learned the sounds they make, I
learned the silent words that come from a person's face when they look at their
shitty paycheck. I learned about the poetry that's found in the dish soap and
the poems that are found in the rag that dries the plates. Another reason I had
all these jobs is because when I went to college I studied philosophy. After I
was finished I could not apply it to anything. I learned more from the jobs,
the travels, the people, places, smells, tastes than I ever did in some
classroom. I am not opposed to education, but for me it did not apply in my
development. This probably shows as it took me ages to learn proper grammar. I
was always fascinated by William Carlos Williams, a doctor who could write
about the people in the streets better than the people could. I am not saying
anyone can be a writer, they cannot. Not everyone is blessed with the gift. To
say everyone can be a writer is almost like saying anyone can be a center in
the NBA. I don't know about you, but I am only 5ft 8, I needed to find another
career. Writing poetry or writing in general saved me from the mundane, it
helped me wake up at 5 am, it helped me cut the sides of beef, or to serve the
people booze. During the worst of times, when I thought my life was crap, when
I thought it was all but done, I'd come home and find out that a poem was
published, or someone liked my chapbook, those things kept me going. They kept
me alive, and they still do. As for travel, I grew up traveling in the summers
with my father for his job. At 8 years old I was eating king crab in Vegas
casinos with show girls, while other times, I was in the desert looking for
something to do. I suppose it has always stayed with me, the traveling, the
rambling around. It's part of my soul, and much like the jobs I had, it taught
me everything about people, landscapes etc.
What goes on in your mind before you write? Where do your
poems come from? Is your writing carefully planned and crafted? Do you have a
set routine? Do you do much editing? What is your overall intent as a writer?
To be honest most times nothing is
in my mind, today for example, I was standing at a busy crosswalk and I
imagined getting hit by a car, instead of the blood and gore I pictured myself
popping like a balloon with tons of confetti littering the street. These images
tend to turn into poems sometimes. The writing comes when I need to express
myself, it also gives me something to do, to be able to tell a story, or convey
an image. It also helps me come full circle as a human, to write out the past,
to help me let go, so in some ways it can be therapeutic. I try to find poetry
in everything, whether it be a simple tree, or a past experience. I avoid
things political, or things religious if I can. I wouldn't say the writing is
carefully planned at all, other than just writing it, trying to get up every day
and just write something, or to travel with a pocket notebook and jot down
words, or lines that could turn into something. I used to not do much editing,
but now I do, but I don't go overboard. I'll write the poem, then I'll read it
several times. I try to use my skill as a butcher with the words; carefully
cutting out stanzas, lines, words etc. I also need to hear myself say the poem
so I can see if the flow feels right, most times it does not. Most times
if the poem does not work out in a few hours it probably does not need to see
the light of day or it might have a few words or lines in it that belong in
another poem. I'm not the type of writer who sits on one poem for ages, there
are way too many other poems to write. I have written thousands of poems in my
lifetime and to this day I have yet to go back to a poem that never worked out,
say a year ago, and tried to work on it again. I live with an English major, so
she tends to go over my manuscripts, helps me with my terrible grammar. My
intent as a writer is nothing more than to write, to keep writing, to write
more and more quality poems, stories. To challenge myself, and let my readers
find some sort of inspiration or to connect with me on an intimate and social
level. I'm not trying to save the world or leave my mark. I guess I am trying
to leave behind a little color in a world that is so black and white.
The cover design of your latest book is very striking and
was created by Milo Duffin and Stephen Roxborough. Can you explain the
background to the design and the choice of the title Nirvana Haymaker?
Milo and Stephen did an excellent
job! I am getting amazing feedback on the cover alone. I will always publish
with NeoPoiesis Press, but they are so jammed up with other projects that I
will probably only publish a book with them every 2-3 years, so in between the
Neo projects I'll do things with other people from time to time. I really like
their view points and their direction. A lot of their books have beautiful and
well thought out covers that portray the overall feeling of the books. The
title "Nirvana Haymaker" like anything else in my life sort of just
popped into my head one day. I had an uncle who was a gold gloves boxer in the
military. He taught me, almost every day, how to punch, and block etc. He taught
me how to be a fighter not only of the flesh, but also of the mind and of the
heart. I see a lot of people get somewhere with ease, or obtain some sort of
enlightenment with ease, I never understood that. I never understood how these
people could wake up one day and say "wow, that's it" without any
sort of struggle. For me, it has always been a fight to be able to say those
words. Maybe I like doing things the hard way, but nothing in my life ever came
easy. I don't think it does for most people, but in with my own personal
experience, it has always been a fight. I think the cover portrays that- the
two boxing gloves over a picture of Boston. I grew up in Boston, lived most of
my life there. It's where I learned to fight, where I learned to never give up.
It has always stuck with me over the years, whether I'm baking a cake, writing
a poem, or fighting or just trying to understand things. If I never grew
up in Boston or had an uncle teach me boxing and the spirit of self
competition, then I would probably not be writing today. I needed that. I need
people to tell me I cannot do something, it makes me a better person when I hear
those words. It makes me a better writer, father, friend, anything really.
You use a wide variety of poems from different perspectives.
How has your subject matter and style developed between your first full length
collection Interstate Chokehold
and Nirvana Haymaker? Who have
been some of your more recent literary influences?
Interstate Chokehold
was more of a write at will sort of book. I bombarded people with wild language
and word pairings that sometimes made no sense. It's not a bad book, but one I
am not overly proud of, but I think I'll say that about every book I write-
haha. I think I just wrote in those days, a lot of those poems are from my
early days as a writer. I was searching for a voice. I was also way too drunk
when writing the poems, I was trying to find myself and trying to find my place
in the world. I did not give a shit about carving up the perfect poem or
perfecting my craft. As for the Nirvana
Haymaker, a lot of those poems were written after I locked myself away in
North Dakota. There's not much vice around me up here, nor distraction. I was
drying out, getting on track, dealing with the pain of my past, writing out the
pain, until I got to the point where I could tell the pain to go to hell. I was
also reading a ton, I mean a ton of poetry. I was rereading Bukowski, Kerouac,
Micheline, Creeley, Olson, Basho, Li Po, d.a. Levy, e.e. cummings, Robinson
Jeffers, James Wright, John Berryman among many others. I was studying what was
so special about them. I was trying to understand and erase my own preconceived
notions of what it meant to be a writer of poetry. I was trying to free myself
of myself in order to just become myself. My recent influences, people writing
today, a lot of them are my friends to one degree, or another. I am a fan of
April Bratten, Will Crawford, Iris Appelquist, Rebecca Schumejda, Wolf
Carstens, William Taylor jr. R.L. Raymond, Rob Plath, Jason Hardung, John
Dorsey, Mather Schneider, Meg Tuite, Cat Benitez, A. Razor, Jason Neese, Amelie
Florence, Dan Provost, Scott Wannberg, S.A. Griffin, Franz Wright, Bucky
Sinister, David Smith, Bill Gainer, Missy Church, John Macker, Dale Winslow,
James Duncan, there are others.
About a dozen poems in the collection, such as, ‘A Letter to
Lowell’, ‘Muse: Downtown Crossing’ and ‘The Endless Sky Above the Suspension
Bridge’ are comparatively abstract. I guess each has its own personal history
but where are you taking the reader, for example, in ‘A Letter to Lowell’?
Well, "Letter to Lowell"
started out like a lot of the poems, sorta out of nowhere. I was actually
listening to Lowell George's band 'Little Feat'. Most people, because I am from
Boston, think it's a letter to the city of Lowell. At the time it was written,
a year, or two ago, I was dealing with mental illness. I was also discovering
my different ego states, hence in the poem how it talks about wanting to be
free of them when it says "priest, drunk, father doctor...". At the time I was also trying to understand
simple human concepts such as love, how I never really understood it, how I was
always looking in the mirror, always looking at this bastard. I think I wrote
it rather quickly. Those lyrical/abstract type poems come from an open heart,
you have to be ready to receive them, you cannot chase after them. It takes an
open heart to write them. The song they give, or the specific flow has to be
captured right away, or they'll never come. I guess it's sort of like a deep
depression, you have those small specs of light that shine through and you need
to capture that light at the right time or you'll never be able to see it. ‘The
Endless Sky’, which is my personal favorite of the bigger lyrical types, was
written when I was trying to write one day, nothing was coming out right, so I
quit. I started to read about the John Berryman suicide. I then remembered this
bridge I used to lie under in Decatur Alabama. It was right next to this huge
river and I would watch the cars and people go over the bridge. I put two and
two together and sorta used Berryman's suicide as my own personal experience while
lying underneath the Decatur Bridge. It's not a suicide poem at all. It's very
much a poem about life and trying to capture your existence and live it to the
fullest.
Can you briefly explain your dealings with NeoPoiesis Press,
especially in terms of how your poems were assembled in the collection and
promoted? How have your two collections been received?
Well, Interstate Chokehold was a learning process for me in terms of
hustle and sell. It sold well, as well as Indie press books of poetry can sell,
but it was received in a very black, or white sort of way. People either loved,
or hated the book. It wasn't street enough, or academic enough or I was
channeling this guy or that guy. Then there were those who loved some of the
poems in there, and they would email me, or tell me they loved the book. Like I
said earlier, I was looking for my voice at that time. The publisher was also
new at the time and they were trying to learn ways to sell, promote etc. so we
were both newbies. By the time Nirvana
Haymaker came out it was 3 years later. We were both seasoned at that time.
The book has had some excellent reviews, people like the different tones and
contrasts. They like that at one moment it can be lyrical, while on the other
side of the coin, it can tell them truths or tell them about me as a person.
People relate to the poems in there a lot more. As for assembly, I don't have a
certain formula. I tend to write a manuscript, say 250 pages, then I pull out
the poems I feel are not strong, then it's edited again, then the publisher and
myself discuss pulling out other poems, then it's looked over and edited again.
This process keeps happening until I find the final product that we can agree
upon. Nirvana Haymaker was a labor.
It was originally about 250 pages, then carved down to about 175 pages. When
first written it was an entirely different manuscript, with totally different
poems, but I sat on it for about 6 months and just read books. One day I
decided it was not the right manuscript, so I wrote an entirely different book.
As I am working on any book, I am still writing new poems every day. Nirvana Haymaker came out of those new
poems I was writing while I was hating the original manuscript. So, I guess I
have about 100 pages of a book that will never see the light of day.
You have also been involved in radio interview work and also
reviews of books. Can you tell me more about your involvement in these literary
sidelines?
I have this collection of poetry
that I really love by Stuart Z Perkoff. In the book he's always talking about
giving back to the muse, so to speak. I always felt, whether for good or bad,
that the muse had always given to me so I wanted to give back in some way. So I
did a radio show called "Your Mother's Medicine Cabinet". The idea
came from my bookcase. I have so many different types of writers from so many
backgrounds on my shelves that I used the concept for the show. I interviewed
so many people from Dan Fante, to Epic Rites Press, to Will Crawford etc. In
many ways it was like my bookcase. It was my way of giving back. The show
abruptly ended and I missed out interviewing Gerald Locklin and John
Macker. I was sad this did not happen. So, I am hoping, in the distant future
to do a show of my own without working under a banner and interviewing those
people. I owe those writers and I will get them on the air, but at the present
I have other things going on that keep me from doing it, but someday soon. As
for reviews I don't really do many of them. I blurb people's books from time to
time or I write a few paragraphs, but I am not very good at it. I know what
moves me and what doesn't. If I really like a book I want the world to know
about it.
Where do you go from here? What projects do you have in the
pipeline?
I actually have another book coming
out sometime this summer for Punk Hostage Press. It will be called "Blood
Music". While I was putting Nirvana
Haymaker together I was writing all these other poems. Some of them 4-5
line poems or observational poems while I was in Nature and hiking. Some of
them are about my past, my dealings with divorce, my former self and drinking.
Some of them are big and lyrical. They all came from my time hanging out in
nature. Granted there are some nature poems, but a lot of them are not, just poems
I wrote after hiking when I was home or while I was dealing with a lot of personal
shit at the shrink's office or dealing with divorce or my memories of living on
the road via the Greyhound and some funny poems too. That book is complete, and
it's going through the editing phase, but it's almost done. I will probably
gander at it again, pull some poems out of it, then ship it off to Punk Hostage
Press. I am also working on a 4th collection, but it's very much in its
infancy. I have no publisher for it because I only have about 15 pages of it. I
am not sure of its direction as I am very keen on working on short story and
novel type stuff next. But I am reaching for something new with this incomplete
collection and I am unsure of what it is, but I am not stressing about it.
After 2-3 years of non-stop writing in North Dakota, it's nice to lay back a
little and just live. I'll get around to it soon enough.
What
general advice would you give to talented young writers of poetry?
Just keep writing. It's as simple as
that. Also, have a thick skin, the art form is not meant for those with thin
skin. Whether your book is selling, or not, some people will hate you for it.
Some people will hate your work, some people will whisper terrible things about
your work. Just ignore it, like Bukowski said, "you're the final judge of
your writing, not the critics, or the readers". If rejection slips or bad
reviews bother you, you might as well get out quickly and get a job as an
accountant. You need a thick skin, you need to keep writing. Also, I would
advise people to seek those things others ignore every day, those things in
between. The world and life is vastly more than black and white, this does not
imply the spiritual or anything new age. It's your neighbors rose garden and
how the roses color the wind. Always seek that wind, those things in between
the garbage dump and the fitness center. I would also advise the writer not to
always be seeking praise, if it's praise you seek, then you're finished. You
have to have confidence in what you do, not ego. You need to learn to separate
the ego from your confidence. I am only 39 and I have been at it since my late
20s and I have seen a lot of writers come and go, especially the ones who are
seeking only praise. It's not writing, it's just a hobby to praise seekers.
Praise seekers lack confidence, they lack thick skin. What I am talking about
has nothing to do with people liking your work, books etc. It has to do with
the writer only writing because they want someone to say to them, "wow,
man you're a genius. This is why they come and go, they move onto something
else, they seek it somewhere else. Vampires, every one of them!
Well,
thanks Frank for your extraordinary candor.
Thanks again, George.
Purchase
Nirvana Haymaker
Direct from Neopoiesis Press: http://neopoiesispress.com/12401/103834.html
Further
Research
The Literary Underground has included a page to
Reardon under the headings: Biography & Early Education, Personal Life
& Employment, Literary Career and Bibliography: http://theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Frank_Reardon
Rusty Truck has posted the following poems: ‘Riding
in a car with S.A. Griffin’, ‘Falling Down in Kansas’, ‘Wear Your Mistress Like
a Badge’ (not in collection), ‘Go 15 With the Typewriter Before the Gods Ring
the Bell’, ‘Earn Your Stripes if You Wanna Swallow the Earth’ (not included).
Find the link here: http://rustytruck.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/the-man-cave-featuring-frank-reardon/#comments
Find an excellent reading by Hank Beukema of two of
Reardon’s poems on youtube found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Zasp-Niyw
