three a.m.

I’m in favor of everyone making up a pen name for themselves, even people who don’t write.  I’m about to start reading a book that Morris loaned me by a guy named Breece D’J Pancake.  (Yeah, it’s D’J.  I don’t know how that’s pronounced either.)  The backstory is that he’s from West Virginia, and he shot himself in the head when he was 26 and in an MFA program.  Just like me!, except I’m from Arkansas, and my stories aren’t good enough for me to commit suicide yet, mostly because I don’t have a pen name.  How about Clive J’R Omelette?  LeRoy DePonze?  Jimmy Biscuit?  Juice McCullough?  B.K. One?

So in celebration of Halloween, I spent the morning writing zombie stripper poems.  This seems like the kind of thing I probably shouldn’t admit in a public forum, but I’m on a mission.  You poets have a writing assignment.  I’m trying to get zombie-stripper poems from other writers, to fill out the series of zombie stripper poems, which go from 1-?  So far, I’ve got #1, #17, and #67.  The format for the title is like: Zombie Stripper Poem #1: Midnight Picnic.  Zombie Stripper Poem #17: Dance of the Undead.  And so forth.  If you send me one, I’ll remove your name and post it in a place where it will get seen.  (Not a billboard; more like a cinderblock wall somewhere in my office).  Of course, there are no stylistic restrictions.  It doesn’t even have to be good.  It just has to be vaguely topical.  If you like, you can even post it as a comment in this blog, along with your pen name.

If you’re wondering what Zack thinks you should be reading, it’s Aimee Bender’s latest collection of short stories: Willful Creatures.  There’s a story about a man born with keys for nine of his fingers, so he spends his life looking for the right doors.  There’s another story about a man who buys a little man at the pet store, takes him home, and torments him.  My personal favorite so far is called Debbieland, which is written in the collective voice (as in, "WE don’t like Debbie…" is there a name for that?) 

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