Going to Coolsville

On Erika Meitner's Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore

Sometimes I love books because they speak to me, tell me I’m not the only one who’s ever felt whatever way it is I’m feeling in the moment. That’s how I was when I read Catie Rosemurgy’s My Favorite Apocalypse (Graywolf, 2001). I still sometimes say “I want my ‘maybe’ back,” a line from her poem “The Office Party,” and I often think her “1,2,3…I’m Perfect Starting Now” is maybe the best poem ever written. Gwendolyn Brooks’s “A Song in the Front Yard” from A Street in Bronzeville (Harper&Brothers, 1945) hits me that same way. I have never been a bad ass, but have often been bad ass adjacent.

Erika Meitner’s Anhinga Prize for Poetry winning Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga, 2003) is a completely different thing for me, though.* I read the poems and rather than feeling comforted by seeing myself, I am enthralled by being brought into a life nothing like my own. The speakers in Meitner’s poems are wounded and tough, vulnerable and cool. And the apparent ease with which Meitner writes sexual desire and the body! Dang! (I say apparent ease because, well, come on, we know that the hardest poems to write are the ones that feel like they just magically appeared on the page.)

One of the greatest joys for me in reading this collection was getting to see how Meitner’s work has progressed over the years. After reading Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, I reread her latest collection Useful Junk (BOA, 2023). What fascinates me when comparing the two collections is the way that her voice has developed, found its certainty and confidence without losing its empathy and earnestness. In another 40 years, I fully expect her to be our own Dowager Countess of Pop Culture Poetry. (Can we call her aesthetic Ultra Talk? I don’t think we can. It lacks the pinging and whizzing vibe, that anxious speed, I associate with Ultra Talk.)

Are you all inspired to write? Let’s go!

In her poem “Gateway Drug,” Meitner writes “how seductive, the idea/ that arbitrary cruelty might evaporate/ if everyone felt beautiful/ in their own skins.” It’s from these lines that I take our writing prompts for today.

1) Set a timer for 10 minutes. Turn your editor voice all the way to zero. It gets no say in what’s about to go down. Write about the coolest person you’ve ever personally known. You’re freewriting here, so not lineating anything if you’re a poet, not trying to craft a narrative if you’re a prose writer, just getting what’s inside out onto the page. (The radio gods [or Amazon Music, as the case may be] are chiming in at this moment with The Replacements and “I’ll Be You,” as if on cue.) Who are they? What made them so cool? How did that coolness influence your interactions with them? Remember, editor voice is at zero. Nothing is off topic and everything your brain offers up is fair game. Just put it on the paper and know that you can sort it out later. Feel tapped out before the ten minutes are up? Then write “I have nothing to write, why did she say 10 minutes? Can I just turn the timer off now? No one will know” until your brain decides to offer you up something else to put on the page. And it will, just keep writing.

2) Now, set the timer again for 10 minutes. Editor voice is still off. All rabbit holes are worth going down, all random trains of thought worth taking for a ride. Write about the fully evolved Pokéman version of yourself (or your higher self, if you want to be less pop culture-y about it). Who are you underneath it all? Who are you above it all? What is it you’re trying to become? (And if these questions don’t resonate with you, then write about why they don’t and see where that goes.) Remember, if that editor voice starts yammering, tell it to go listen to the new Say She She album and leave you alone for a bit, you’ll let it know when you need it.

3) Now we’re going to en-rhythm! This is a process popularized by Annie Finch where you repeat a poem in a specific meter in preparation to write in that meter (or you can drum or dance in the meter instead). I think you also get interesting results with free verse poems or using metrical poems with no intention to write in meter. I think it’s an intriguing extension of Finch’s work, though one that would probably irk her to no end. I’m going to suggest that you use Meitner’s “Not a Poem About Driving At Night,” which you can find on Slate. (I’m not sure what’s up with the line breaks on Slate, but they’re slightly different from what’s in the collection itself.) Read the poem OUT LOUD for the FULL TEN MINUTES!!! (Yes, seriously, give it a try, it’s only ten minutes.) If the words start to lose their meaning and the sounds are just rushing over you, good! Just keep vibing!

Not interested in reading a poem? You can also drum or dance around to a song. I’m going to suggest Annprincess’s “Nothing’s Wrong with Me.” Listen to it over and over for the full 10 minutes.

4.) Now it’s time to let the editor voice back in the room. Invite it to come up to like a 3 or 4. It can help you pick the genre, maybe give some thoughts about structure, a word choice here or there, but don’t let it start to take over or start bossing you around too much. Still try to flow, but now with an eye toward crafting something you can revise for publication later (or for just looking at and saying “Dang, I love this!” if publication isn’t your goal). So, the prompt here is to write a poem, short story, or essay about whatever’s on your mind right now. Need a little more guidance? How about writing a poem, short story, or poem about the cool person you wrote about tackling your daily chores (not their chores, yours). Remember though, still let whatever’s inside out onto the page. You might start with chores and end up somewhere completely different. That’s fine, you can cut and rewind during revision. Just write. Set the timer for 10 minutes, but let yourself write longer if that’s what feels right to you today.

And there you have it! You’ve got a new piece ready to revise this upcoming week, next month, or the 12^th of Never!

Want to order a copy of Erika Meitner’s Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore for your own? Visit Meitner’s page on the Anhinga site: https://www.anhingapress.org/erika-meitner. And hey, if you’ve already read the collection, why not leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or whatever your favorite site is, or maybe just tell a friend what you think, not everything has to be put down for posterity.

*For folks who missed the post where I introduced this new series: I’m back on the board of Anhinga Press and trying to familiarize myself with our back catalog. And what better way to do that than to also share my insights with you as I go along!