{"id":12113,"date":"2017-10-17T11:07:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T15:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/?p=12113"},"modified":"2017-10-17T11:34:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T15:34:18","slug":"tommy-pico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/tommy-pico\/","title":{"rendered":"Poet Tommy Pico on Publishing and Writing Every Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tommy Pico is a Brooklyn-based award-winning poet originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation. He is the author of the books IRL<\/em> (Birds, LLC, 2016), Nature Poem<\/em> (Tin House Books, 2017), Junk<\/em> (forthcoming 2018 from Tin House Books), the zine series Hey, Teebs<\/em> and the chapbook app absentMINDR (VerbalVisual 2014). He also co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub. We chat here about his writing process, experience with publishing, and advice for an aspiring poet.<\/p>\n

Tell us about your upcoming book Junk<\/em> coming out in May 2018 from Tin House.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Junk<\/em> is a gassy break-up poem in couplets. There\u2019s not really much punctuation because I wanted to give it the sense that ideas about junk, the different definitions and contexts, are ramming into each other. Each line is ~4.5 inches long, so every page looks the exact same, despite being made up of a lot of discreet, thorny, loud moments. Kind of like a junk drawer. A mass of disparate things that gains a uniformity by its accumulation. Also dicks.<\/p>\n

In an interview for Vol. 1 Brooklyn<\/em>, you explain how one book inspires the next. Do you have any rituals you use to find inspiration to start the process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing is the ritual. It\u2019s unglamorous, stupid, and rude. I hate it but it\u2019s the most consistent commitment I\u2019ve been able to adhere to. While a persona of mine sort of becomes a facet of the writing, I\u2019m really writing about the world and not necessarily about myself. There is so much world out there, so I feel like I could keep writing forever.<\/p>\n

How has the publishing experience been for you? I feel like it can be hard to know whether to publish independently or seek a publisher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I self-published zines and on tumblr and stuff like that for years and years before I ever had a manuscript or wrote IRL (my first book). Because I came up in punk and zines, making the thing and putting it out myself has always been the goal. I never expected to be \u201cpublished\u201d in a major way, so everything I\u2019ve worked out with Birds LLC and Tin House has been pure gravy.<\/p>\n

When did you start your podcast, Food 4 Thot? How did the four of you meet and decide to come together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We met at the Tin House Summer Writer\u2019s Workshop 2016. We\u2019re all New York writers, all fairly indecent, are plugged into all manner of pop-culture, and also read and think deeply. Our conversations that week at the workshop spanned all quadrants of levity, depth, filth, fuckery, and stoned midnight musings on the inner workings of the mind or whatever. Our little band continued to get together once we returned to the city and I was like, let\u2019s get on mic. I never imagined so many other people would respond the way that they have but I guess that means I have good taste?<\/p>\n

If you could tell an aspiring poet one thing what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Write every day. Every single dumb damn day. If you have an excuse not to, you\u2019re going to keep making them. It doesn\u2019t have to be all day or even for 20 minutes. Start with five. You can do five. Oh, and don\u2019t let your pen stop. You have all the time in the world to self-censor and second guess. Let the writing time be writing time.<\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite word and\/or sound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the words \u201cdiphthong,\u201d \u201cmarionberry,\u201d and \u201cAli Larter\u2019s barter for sourdough starter stars & garters farm barn.\u201d Not just a regular farm. A farm barn.<\/p>\n

More about Tommy Pico:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Astrology Sign:<\/strong> Sagittarius
\nFavorite Book:<\/strong> There\u2019s a Monster at the End of This Book<\/em>
\nFavorite Poem:<\/strong> I do this Poetry Mixtape tinyletter every month, which helps me keep abreast of poets I\u2019ve yet to read or really want to read and my latest personal discovery is this poet Talin Tahajian. Favorite all-time poet would probably have to be AR Ammons and June Jordan.
\nFavorite Food:<\/strong> Pizza, all manner of pizza, 24 hours a day\/seven days a week.
\nBest spot in NYC to feel inspired:<\/strong> The beach, hands down. Salty, insistent, and a breeze.
\nWhat’s one thing that that no one (or very few people) know about you?:<\/strong> I don\u2019t like cheese :-\/<\/p>\n

For more information about Tommy Pico please visit\u00a0heyteebs.tumblr.com<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related article: Entrepreneur Shelley Holcomb Talks Sex and Work-Life Balance<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Join the community and become a Posture member<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0for only $45 annually. Membership includes our annual print magazine, special event invitations, personal updates from the team, and more! Learn more\u00a0here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tommy Pico is a Brooklyn-based award-winning poet originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation. He is the author of the books IRL (Birds, LLC, 2016), Nature Poem (Tin House Books, 2017), Junk (forthcoming 2018 from Tin House Books), the zine series Hey, Teebs and the chapbook app absentMINDR (VerbalVisual 2014). He also\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2065],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[3400,3398,3406,3409,3402,3380,2241,3407,3404,3401,3408,3405,3403,3386,3387,3378,3399,3410,3382,3381],"class_list":["post-12113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Tommy-Pico.jpg?fit=2000%2C1384","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6QBV8-39n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12120,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113\/revisions\/12120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12113"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}