#daniel zomparelli

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Single-Author Short Story Collections Lot by Bryan Washington felt in the jaw by Kristen Arnett Everything is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person…

[joannemerriam]

Book covers for:

There Is Only the Sacred and the Desecrated by Mary Buchinger (Lily Poetry Review): Paul Nemser Book Prize, Honorable Mention. “A Book of Hours chronicling moments that mesh the physical with the spiritual. . . She penetrates the growth of a tree in good years and hard years by reading the formation of its rings as readily as she reaches into the life of Francis of Assisi, illuminating his understanding of the sacred, his ailments, and his love for and ministering to animals as well as people.”- Jennifer Barber. Poetry by the author of Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, Honors, 2024 Massachusetts Book Award). https://lilypoetryreview.blog/lily-poetry-review-press/there-is-only-the-sacred-and-the-desecrated-by-mary-buchinger/

& Super Castle Fun Park by Daniel Zomparelli (Arsenal Pulp): The dead want to speak to you. But are you ready to hear their words? Super Castle Fun Park explores a group of people tending wistfully to their precarious lives. Dario is an aimless pessimist staying at a themed hotel who is tasked with the care of his aunt at the end of her life. Jeremy is Dario's anxious boyfriend who is trapped in his home, plagued by disturbing visions. Chelsea is an ornery medium who spends her free time on her phone trolling a group of misfits in an online game. Each of them is at the precipice of change, and the people they are interconnected to, including the dead, will be there when it happens. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/S/Super-Castle-Fun-Park

[joannemerriam]

Book cover for Super Castle Fun Park by Daniel Zomparelli (Arsenal Pulp): The dead want to speak to you. But are you ready to hear their words? Super Castle Fun Park explores a group of people tending wistfully to their precarious lives. Dario is an aimless pessimist staying at a themed hotel who is tasked with the care of his aunt at the end of her life. Jeremy is Dario's anxious boyfriend who is trapped in his home, plagued by disturbing visions. Chelsea is an ornery medium who spends her free time on her phone trolling a group of misfits in an online game. Each of them is at the precipice of change, and the people they are interconnected to, including the dead, will be there when it happens. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/S/Super-Castle-Fun-Park

[smokefalls]

Title: Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry Editors: David Ly, Daniel Zomparelli Publication Date: October 2022 Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press Genre: fiction, horror, queerlit, poetry, short stories

This was a fun anthology to read, and I enjoyed how all the contributing authors explored monstrosity and queerness in their respective poems and stories. Some pieces haunted, others leaned harder into the conventional idea of the monstrous, and many were surprisingly reflective. I will say when it comes to engaging with the themes of queerness and monstrosity, some were more abstract than others, especially when it came to the poems (though, I guess that is the nature of a lot of poetry, haha). I also appreciated that there were a fair number of queer authors of color who also considered race.

I will say some pieces were more engaging than others, but, overall, I thought this was a really thoughtful anthology that’s perfect for the spooky season.

Content Warning: homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, body horror, blood

[zuckergussprinzessin]

everyone go home I found the best actor bio on imdb

[retailnightmarespodcast]

Visit Original Link

Excellent writer and podcast host Daniel Zomparelli joins the co-ghosts to discuss haunted houses, too much tuna and space poets.

RSS

iTunes

Download

Patreon

Tote bags and more!

[subterrainblog]

How A Poem Reads: Daniel Zomparelli on “Marketing Tips” by Dina Del Bucchia

Hi. My name is Daniel Zomparelli, and I want you to sell me this pen, jk, jk. I will start this off by saying, I am close friends with Dina Del Bucchia, in fact, I am her work husband. One time we shared a bed. Not sexually, gross. I'm here to talk to you about her poem "Marketing Tips" which is very informative of a title, because it's about marketing tips. It starts with "Read Marketing For Dummies" so naturally I have downloaded a copy of Marketing Fur Dummies, because I know that's the best start. In the intro of Marketing Four Dummies it states:

"I also assume that you’re willing to try new ideas in order to improve sales and grow your organization. After all, marketing requires an open mind and a willingness to experiment and try new ideas and techniques."

You assumed correct, book! The poem starts with the narrator burning the book, which doesn't appear helpful to allow for marketing, but then again Marketing Fir Dummies tells me to play on my strengths, and this is what the narrator does. My strength is in my crippling self doubt, which is how I am writing this critique! She, I'm assuming she, but fuck gender binaries anyway, she asks you to approach business as a super hero in a tight outfit. Body suits and power suits are the best, so that's a great start. And getting a logo for yourself, smart! Here is where we see a split in that gender binary I was earlier trying to fuck, "And another thing: do you have a penis? Then brand it. With a branding iron." You see? And then, " Do you have a vagina? Don’t brand it. But do brand a single breast or inner thigh." This is the part of the poem that is letting me in. It's a backdoor (hah, backdoor).  

Side note: one time I was in business school, then dropped out when everyone around me was making my heart sad.

Business is notorious for its boy club mentality. This poem, which approaches marketing from a largely feminized perspective, aka Lady Gaze, fights its way into the market. Go, re-read the poem again. I will wait here for you.

Great! You see? You got it!

The narrator, in a culmination of questions asks if you are ready to believe in, well, yourself, but more realistically in marketing itself. Poetry lives in a space outside of capitalism. Even when you try to squeeze it in, no one gives a shit and doesn't want to give you money for it. This poem is unearthing the uncomfortable space between poetry and capitalism. I think. I dunno, I should ask my crippling self doubt.

The narrator, who is clearly a Nicki-Minaj-esque boss-ass-bitch, gives into this power structure, working with the system. She's all down for the system she gives into until she comes to the final realization that engaging in the type of power structure turns you into a commodity yourself. " Because if you can’t sell yourself then you can’t sell anything." Lol, capitalism. Well, it's like Marketing 4 Dummies says, " In marketing, you don’t have to feel bad about making mistakes, as long as you recognize the mistakes and take away useful lessons." As Dina's poem can tell you, engaging in patriarchal structures such as capitalism, failure is inevitable or failure is the only action of rebellion. Or, in her own words, "set it on fire."

Ok, so I know what you're thinking. "But Daniel, you're so attractive and there are no line breaks in this poem." I hear you. But think about the lack of space. Think about the ways line breaks allow breathing. Think about how that allows a poem do be meditative. And this poem is not allowing you any of that.

As Marketing Fear Dummies says, "Whether you retail services or goods, you need to think about your merchandising strategy. You do have one, whether you know it or not — and if you don’t know it, your strategy is based on conventions in your industry and needs a kick in the seat of the pants to make it more distinctive."

Have you learned a lot? Me too. I like learning with you. And if there is one thing I hope you take from this poem is that the power of Dina's rage is beautiful. I hope you feel the wrath of it soon.  »

[subterrainblog]

How A Poem Reads: Dina Del Bucchia on Daniel Zomparelli’s “Selfie”

Dina Del Bucchia responds to “Selfie” by Daniel Zomparelli

On each reading of Daniel Zomparelli’s “Selfie” I kept thinking about the way we approach photographs from our past, through #tbt (Throwback Thursday) and other visual, public ways of sharing our history. We allow others to view our lives through these images, draw conclusions without context, without backstory. A photo of someone lost to us might prompt a different reaction in us in mixed company, but when we’re alone, or in a more intimate setting, our emotions and connectivity change. “Selfie” examines a significant relationship, death and loss through the act of photography.

The reasons we take photos are numerous. Sometimes the reasons are deep, and sometimes not at all. The reasons we take photos of ourselves are numerous too. Those who take selfies document and control their own image. Often a selfie instigates a certain type of strange rage in those examining that photo. As if this image is about them. Guess what? It’s not. Guess what else? The viewer doesn’t know what’s behind the expression in a photo, the experience of the person behind the selfie, their fucking feelings. This poem takes on the seemingly superficial selfie and creates a different, detailed picture of the speaker’s emotions and experience.

Photographs capture. We take a photo. In many instances in “Selfie,” the speaker mentions things being taken. Photographs are taken, but also an amorphous something. The speaker iterates that as a child he was told, “a photo takes something away from you.”  In this instance his belief becomes a reality. A person is taken from him, the very person he hides behind in the photograph of him and his mother. The verb simultaneously expresses that imagistic capture, but also the idea of longing and loss.

Selfie as self-documentation is interesting here as the speaker mentions marking age through photos, as well as his mental state. When he says, “I took several photos of myself/to see what depression looks like,” I was like, “this makes total sense!” How do we find ways to examine what’s happening inside us by looking at our outsides? It’s sad, funny, strange and understandable that someone would attempt to use the stereotypical selfie, associated with what many consider vanity, and imbue it with emotional resonance. These acts are heartbreaking and endearing. How ridiculously do we behave when we think we’re alone? When we know we’re alone because of the absence of another person? “Selfie,” takes on those ideas, documentation to re-frame, to recapture, to search for answers, for something.

At the beginning of the poem the speaker’s mother takes a photo of herself for the speaker, but also for them as a unit, and in the final lines only the speaker remains. Even though he says, “I can take this photo of myself now,” he’s unable to take a selfie without the image of loss creeping into frame. All photographs taken now are absent of that person. He can only, “wipe the lens and refocus,” and try again to take the photo alone.

In death, the smallest moments, visual documents, become markers of loss, triggers, memories of everything around the still image. The lost individual isn’t hidden behind the frame, and neither is the concept of loss. Both are made visible. The selfie is maligned and criticized as superficial or worthless, but in this poem the reader sees meaning both in and behind the image. In “Selfie” the photographic technique is not a vanity project.