Two poems in Martin Rock’s beautiful new online journal Loaded Bicycle.
Dale Seever came over to talk meat heart sandwiches, secret families and poetry. I am obsessed with this man.
Polestar got a lovely shout-out in AM New York.
Reading and flappin gums at Soda Series on May 15 at 7 PM. Come come! You’ll get to meet curator John Dermot Woods who I consider a hub of serenity in the eye of all things literary.
I have a new poem at beautiful online journal The Collagist.
I have an acutely vaginal new poem at The Morning News.
Gonna throw down some Tarot at this mofo at AWP.
Reviewed Travis Nichols’ See Me Improving (good shit!) at The Rumpus.
The lovely Katarina Hybenova came over to my apartment and took pics / asked some questions for Brooklyn 365.
Lots of readings coming up…
That being said, 2010 confirmed for me that no amount of happy externals will ever fill me up. Peace of mind is, annoyingly, an inside job. In 2011, it’s likely I will continue to seek external approval to feel A-OK and continue to bottom out on said external approval (or lackthereof–depending on the day) on a daily basis. But I still proclaim 2011 the year of the inside job.
Coupla things re: me.
I have a new poem involving a lonesome cowgirl up at H_NGM_N.
I have a new poem up at Lamination Colony involving menses and/or jello. It is run with a photo. I appear orange in the photo. I globbed on Sephora Perfekt in “rich” when I should have used “radiant.” Editor Blake requested that we send a photo from the shoulders up, no shirt, if we felt comfortable. Sending the photo was optional. I thought “Oh yes, I will send a photo. It will be a pretty photo.” I wish I was the kind of writer who is uncomfortable sending a photo. Instead, I am the kind of writer who is uncomfortable one month later. I had a lovely time this morning feeling guilty that the lip gloss invalidates my work. Though in many ways, that is what the poem is about.
I have a new piece up at HuffPo involving grand theft poetics.
I’ll be in Rome (and thereabouts in Italy) until November 7, at which point Polestar w/ Aaron Fagan, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz and Garrett Kalleberg will commence. Did you know that the vomitoriums are largely a myth? I didn’t. So very disappointed.
New piece up at HuffPo about Mummy, Daddy and publishing.
Edith Wharton’s booty on WWAATD (yep, still bloggin) (you’d be surprised how long it takes to find all of those pics when one could be writing po).
Double-issue release party for La Petite Zine and Annalemma (Chris Heavener rules).
I have four new poems up at Small Doggies involving bodyswitching in Hollywood and the diner as hospice. Thanks Matty Byloos!
Reading tonight at Greatest 3-Minute Guilt Stories Ever at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker w/ Rachel Shukert, Matthue Roth and other peeps more famous than me.
Also reading Saturday, September 24 at 4 pm at ye ol’ Cakeshop w/ Clay McCleod Chapman + Joseph Riippi at the Enclave Reading Series.
I am reading in Baltimore this Sunday July 25 @ 7 pm at Last Rites in the Baltimore Hostel, 17 W Mulberry Street.
Dawn Davenport will be there. My friend Beth Feingold will be there.
After that I am going to go to sleep in this beautiful cave for a little while.
Two new poems and an oldie up at On Earth As It Is (Matthew J. Simmons’ rad prayer site).
New piece up at HuffPo and it’s not about Lindsay Lohan. It’s about the creative process, poet Barbara Guest, and easin’ on down the road.
Co-hosting Literary Death Match on July 15 with Ms. Ann Heatherington. Ann and I are both Baldwin girls. Mrs. Cairns high school English–holla!
What up yo? Oh me? Not much. Running out of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls film stills and lyrics to You’re So Vain for these little roundups. May have to move on to Psych-Out.
I wrote an essay for HuffPo about being neurotic and publishing a first book.
I’ve got some new poems up at PANK!
PANK did an interview to go with the poems, in which we talked textual contraints and patty melts. Rockstar poet J. Bradley (the rakish hobbit!) did the questioning.
I Jewed out and talked lit with Rachel Shukert and Naomi Firestone at The Big Jewcy.
The lovely Nicelle Davis interviewed me about fingerbang (one word, people).
Jewish Book World did a sweet review of Mother.
Thanks to Roxane Gay and Jason Diamond for some of these good things happening.
On a recent trip to SF, I did a scavenger hunt to see how many of the people/places/things I could find from my poem (in Mother) Falling Off the Richter Scale. Below are the poem and the results of the hunt.
Feeling a bit like Chava in Fiddler on the Roof…right before Tevye disowns her.
I’m reading tomorrow night at The Gryphon in Wayne. The crowd will consist of:
a. My parents
b. My parents’ friends
Really don’t want to say “gargantuan sudsy banana” in front of my dad.
Definitely don’t want to say “rubbing against his mushrooming” in front of my dad.
Would prefer not to say “nothing-tits” in front of my dad.
If at all possible, it’s preferable that I don’t say “what about my urethra?” in front of my dad.
Absolutely do not want to say “bang it in” in front of my dad.
Under no circumstances will I say “bumping the bum meth off his bum” in front of my dad.
Does anyone have some poems they can lend me?
I swore I wouldn’t be the kind of writer who uses her children for material, but today I am rejecting my own value-system to announce the marriage of my two daughters: Peaches and Angie. Yes, they’re sisters but they’re also…lovers. Want to make something of it?
A little more about the bride and groom:
Name: Peaches
Confirmation name: Peaches Marie
Nicknames: Peepee, Peepalah
Likes: Running in circles, headbanging, cultivating green chlorophyll bib
Dislikes: Any type of human contact, including–but not limited to: petting, touching, squeezing, kissing, or footsteps within ten foot radius
Strengths: Massive ego
Weaknesses: Massive ego
Trademarks: Athletic prowess, pink ear, “the smart one”
Name: Angie
Nicknames: Angelina Ratlie, Fatticus Ratticus
Strengths: Asserts dominance once a month when she’s “on her cycle” (or some cycle) and takes Peaches by storm
Weaknesses: Respiratory infections, Bumblefoot, possibly blind
Likes: Hiding in the pigloo, leafy greens, hay
Dislikes: Costumes, vaccuum cleaner
Trademark: Her voluptuous curves
Bride and groom are both wearing Cuddly Cavies couture. Bride’s jewels by Harry Winston.
Wedding photographer: Brandon Finney. Holiday photographer: Rick Robertson.
Today my mother and I spent the afternoon davening at her spiritual home, Bergdorf Goodman. She let me know that she is still planning to abstain from reading the book and had this to say:
How about we try and make the next book semi-normal? Enough with these people with hangups. Enough with the face tattoos already.
I responded using the words artist and self-expression, two locutions I never use self-referentially unless I’m getting a lecture about my junkie fetish in the Roger Vivier section of the shoe salon.
I have the perfect photo of my mother taken during a similar pilgrimage this summer. It was raining and we didn’t have an umbrella, so she’s standing in front of the Big B with a plastic bag over her head.
While I’m dying to post the photo here, I just can’t sell her out like that. She’s mad cool in her Brunello Cucinelli separates and D’Agostino hat, just trying to understand her daughter. And I’m not that kind of artist yo.
"Milk Fed is a romp…a pageant of bodily juices and exploratory fingers and moan after moan of delight."
–Los Angeles Times
"A dizzily compelling story of love, lust, addiction, faith, maternal longing, and…frozen yogurt."
–Vogue
"A revelation…Melissa Broder has produced one of the strangest and sexiest novels of the new year..."
–Entertainment Weekly
"A thrilling examination of hunger, desire, faith, family and love."
–Time
"Milk Fed bravely questions the particularly female lionization of thin and loathing of fat, landing on fresh explanations…deliciously droll…a celebration of bodily liberation."
–The New York Times
"Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is a delectable exploration of physical and emotional hunger."
–The Washington Post
"A sensuous and delightfully delirious tale… Filled with an unadulterated filthiness that would make Philip Roth blush, Broder’s latest is a devour-it-in-one-sitting wonder."
–O, the Oprah Magazine
"A modern-day mythology for women on the verge — if everything on the surface stops making sense, all you need to do is dive deeper.."
–The New York Times
"The Pisces convincingly romances the void."
–The New Yorker
"Explosive, erotic, scathingly funny…a profound take on connection and longing that digs deep."
–Entertainment Weekly
"The dirtiest, most bizarre, most original works of fiction I’ve read in recent memory…Broder has a talent for distilling graphic sexual thoughts, humor, female neuroses and the rawest kind of emotion into a sort of delightfully nihilistic, anxiety-driven amuse bouche…"
–Vogue.com
"A page turner of a novel…funny and frank."
–Washington Post
"The Pisces is an intellectual, enthralling voyage into one woman’s swirling mind as she brushes with the extraordinary."
–Refinery29
"Get ready to laugh-cry over and over again...a perverse romance that captures the addictive and destructive forces of obsessive love. The Pisces is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking."
–Vulture.com
"What separates Broder from her confessional cohort...is that she doesn’t seem to be out to shock, but to survive."
–Elle
"Broder presents a dizzying array of intimate dispatches and confessions…She has a near-supernatural ability to not only lay bare her darkest secrets, but to festoon those secrets with jokes, subterfuge, deep shame, bravado, and poetic turns of phrase."
–New York Magazine
"A triumph of unsettlingly relatable prose."
–Vanity Fair
"Her writing is deeply personal, sophisticated in its wit, and at the same time, devastating. SO SAD TODAY is a portrait of modern day existence told with provocative, irreverent honesty."
–Nylon
"At once devastating and delightful, this deeply personal collection of essays…is as raw as it is funny."
–Cosmopolitan
"Broder writes about the hot-pink toxins inhaled every day by girls and women...and the seemingly impossible struggle to exhale something pure, maybe even eternal...there's a bleak beauty in the way she articulates her lowest moments."
–Bookforum
"Broder may be talking about things like sexts, Botox, and crushes, but these things are considered alongside contemplations about mortality, identity, and the difficulty of finding substance in a world where sometimes it’s so much easier to exist behind a screen."
–The Fader
"…So Sad Today is uplifting and dispiriting in seemingly equal measure. It’s a book that’s incredibly human in the way it allows for deep self-reflection alongside Broder, which speaks not only to her powerful writing but also the internet’s magical ability to foster connections."
–A.V. Club
"...delightful...Broder embarks on an earnest, sophisticated inquiry into the roots and expressions of her own sadness...deeply confessional writing brings disarming humor and self-scrutiny...Broder's central insight is clear: it is ok to be sad, and our problems can't be reduced to a single diagnosis. "
–Publishers Weekly
"Broder is probably the Internet’s most powerful merchant of feelings…"
–GQ
"Vividly rendered and outspokenly delivered essays…Sordid, compulsively readable entries that lay bare a troubled soul painstakingly on the mend."
–Kirkus Reviews
"Broder manages to conjure a psychic realm best described as one part twisted funhouse and two parts Catholic school, heavy on libido and with a dash of magick. This gritty, cherry soda–black book...is bizarrely sexy in its monstrousness."
–Publishers Weekly
"I don’t know what a book is if not a latch to elsewhere, and Scarecrone has pressed its skull against the hidden door. It is neither drunk nor ecstatic to be here—it is a state unto itself."
–VICE
"Lushly dark and infused with references to black magic, Broder's work often feels less like a book and more like a mystical text."
–PAPERMAG
"Out to 'crucify boredom,' her poems show us how any relationship with the divine is no less at risk of engendering grotesque lust...What makes Broder such a pleasure on the page is her insistence that these dramas play out on a workaday stage infused with surreal Pop and imaginative muscle..."
–Publishers Weekly
"With a title recalling Yeats...Broder risks the divine in her second book...shrewd, funny, twisted, sad poems..."
–The Chicago Tribune
"Meat Heart...is unbelievable and overwhelming for its imaginative power alone, but if you listen past the weird you can hear all sorts of things: sadness, seriousness, life, death, and a whole lot of laughter....Broder is a tremendous talent"
–Flavorwire
"...Meat Heart embodies that strain of sustenance, that sort of psychosomatic excitement most valiant art more or less tries to pull off…Her poems don’t bore or bear down. They beam oracle energy. They pump a music of visions for the life-lusty death dance."
–BOMB
MOTHER
“This debut from Broder is as funny and hip as it is disturbing… a bright and unusual debut.”
–Publishers Weekly
"…obsessive, energetic and pop-culture-infused poetry…"
–Time Out New York
"Broder’s insight and honesty will make your brain light up and your hair stand on end.”
–The San Francisco Examiner
"Broder’s verse is acrobatic and whip-smart… its own creature."
–Bomb
