#panic attack usa

[rustbeltjessie]

An Essay About 21st Century Poetry

I hate to sound so con- fessional but I really don’t like the day after last night you wore blue I wore blue there was rain a lot of it I wanted something unexpected two horses making love in a field along I-94 their breath hovering becoming white & I see now it’s so very simple always has been the way to fuck is to evaporate so why don’t we meet to- morrow I will be less lousy a Teenage Fanclub video in your queen size bed I’m talking Sony Handycam of my fingernails & your black underwear if that’s what you think enjambment is & why wouldn’t you you whammy bar you theremin I like your vibrations you are what they call a teenage symphony of the Midwest your backroads are beautiful let me drive you Mustang in an ice storm & across three counties let’s graffiti every bathroom mirror with our names cross our hearts & align our skins like woodgrain.

—Nate Slawson, from Panic Attack, USA

[rustbeltjessie]

Two books of poetry I always return to: Nate Slawson’s Panic Attack, USA and Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. The copy of Lunch Poems is my personal copy, Panic Attack, USA is from the library, but I check it out and reread it at least once a year so I should really just buy a copy. Anyway, I was sitting outside alternating between reading these two books, and I got inspired to write a poem after Nate Slawson that also contains a nod to Frank O’Hara. (April 23, 2022)

[rustbeltjessie]

Nate Slawson, “An Essay About Gospel Music” (from Panic Attack, USA)

I think I am going Catholic what with my sudden bouts of guilt & sadness I kneel before you I suspect pine needles I suspect gravel I feel I should say something you are very sexy you should know I will stare at you like a math equation meaning night is tender I call it factory because they is all the same alley night N Carolina night I am never lost in the vastness the moon the parking lots the holy land I suppose you breathe hot & I’ll show you my blues there’s time I’m in love with everyone & sleeping naked sleeping with you it’s the red underneath my skin that gets mosquito & why not why not yours too this is America after all we can breakdance if we want or shove our hearts through a giant stained glass window.

[thesingingknives]

from Panic Attack, USA by Nate Slawson

[itsinthestars]

We are a map of the midwest. You are Ohio & I am Michigan & I am on top of you & it is so fucking hot. Your treasure trail is on fire down I-75 to Cincinnati & goddamn if that's now how it happened. I wake up naked in the July sun wishing I was Kentucky & your ankles were a river wrapped around my throat but none of this matters anyway & christ if you're not always telling me the same thing. It's not happening no way not in this zip code brother or any other place.

Nate Slawson, "We are a Map of the Midwest"

[nateslawson]

Breathless as the owner of the car you’ve just stolen and unsettling as the first date who says I love you, Nate Slawson doesn’t push boundaries in Panic Attack, U.S.A., he warps them like a telekinetic Proteus.

[nateslawson]

In addition to dealing with nostalgia head-on, one of Panic Attack, U.S.A.’s strongest qualities is its appropriation of a seemingly immature teenage voice, and how it uses what could be a thin, reedy, irritating whine to gracefully address a number of “big” topics.

[nateslawson]

words to live by...maybe. maybe not. whatev.