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PONK!
A punk rock anti-memoir told through the eyes of a biracial Afrolatino punk academic.
¡PÓNK! follows Moose, an alienated academic and lead guitarist for Pipebomb!, as he navigates through spaces in and out of South East Los punk clubs, college classrooms, family gatherings, street protests, and euphoric backyard shows. Oscillating between autofiction, memoir, and lyric, Clayton blurs genres while articulating the layered effects of racism, trauma, immigration, policing, Black hair, performance, and toxic academic language to uncover how one truly becomes an “ally.” Borrowing from the spatial lyricism of Claudia Rankine, the genre-bending storytelling of Alexander Chee, and the racial musings of James Baldwin, ¡PÓNK!’s narrative takes back punk rock and finds safe space in the mosh pit.
¡PÓNK! follows Moose, an alienated academic and lead guitarist for Pipebomb!, as he navigates through spaces in and out of South East Los punk clubs, college classrooms, family gatherings, street protests, and euphoric backyard shows. Oscillating between autofiction, memoir, and lyric, Clayton blurs genres while articulating the layered effects of racism, trauma, immigration, policing, Black hair, performance, and toxic academic language to uncover how one truly becomes an “ally.” Borrowing from the spatial lyricism of Claudia Rankine, the genre-bending storytelling of Alexander Chee, and the racial musings of James Baldwin, ¡PÓNK!’s narrative takes back punk rock and finds safe space in the mosh pit.
- GenresMusic
240 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2025
2 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 5, 2025
If I could give this more than 5 stars, I would. It was a phenomenal read; I think it might be my favorite read of 2025, honestly.
The writing is captivating and had me sucked in from the first few lines:
The way Marcus Clayton mixes genres is inspiring. From prose to poetry to something in between, I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long long time. Everyone currently is or ever was in the scene, especially my fellow people of color and/or queer folks, should read this book. There's nothing that compares to the feeling of reading something so clearly a part of the author (at times, reading felt like I was holding his heart, his very self, in my clammy palms) and seeing yourself in the pages.
The writing is captivating and had me sucked in from the first few lines:
The ally is a punk rocker.
The ally knows the dance. The most pit—a word birthed from a Black mouth no matter what white boys tell you. The thesis of this dance: keep bodies safe, move as they move.
Say nothing.
Listen.
The way Marcus Clayton mixes genres is inspiring. From prose to poetry to something in between, I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long long time. Everyone currently is or ever was in the scene, especially my fellow people of color and/or queer folks, should read this book. There's nothing that compares to the feeling of reading something so clearly a part of the author (at times, reading felt like I was holding his heart, his very self, in my clammy palms) and seeing yourself in the pages.
April 13, 2025
When I first read the description of this book, I wondered what an anti-memoir even was. Now that I have finished it, I couldn’t describe it any other way.
Early in the pages, the author quotes Audre Lorde, “For the master's tool will never dismantle the master's house.“ In the same way, the author is using everything at his disposal to make this book. He intertwines various writing genres, languages, music, anecdotes and news stories all through his lens as an AfroLatinx existing in our current world . His experiences give life to a book that feels very uniquely his.
This book doesn’t sit politely in one genre and that is Ponk.
Early in the pages, the author quotes Audre Lorde, “For the master's tool will never dismantle the master's house.“ In the same way, the author is using everything at his disposal to make this book. He intertwines various writing genres, languages, music, anecdotes and news stories all through his lens as an AfroLatinx existing in our current world . His experiences give life to a book that feels very uniquely his.
This book doesn’t sit politely in one genre and that is Ponk.
May 15, 2025
I thought the second half of the book was a lot better than the first half.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews