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Of Mongrelitude
Of Mongrelitude is a colloquy on the mongrel body, texual and actual, sexual, specieal, and racial. Composed in a hybrid style, it makes the argument that everything can and does come into ‘englyssh’: ancient and invented languages, european and indigenous, tongues not yet named. All of this ‘made up as medicine’, as ceremony for all creatures, as literal song.
Julian T. Brolaski is the author of Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), and co-editor of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (Litmus Press / Belladonna Books 2009). Julian lives in Oakland, and is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist in the country band The Western Skyline.
Julian T. Brolaski is the author of Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), and co-editor of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (Litmus Press / Belladonna Books 2009). Julian lives in Oakland, and is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist in the country band The Western Skyline.
- GenresPoetryTransgender
112 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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June 16, 2017wtf cd a feminsm even mean in that context
where everyone is blue
except gargamel and azrael, thinly veiled evil jew and cat antagonists
where everyone is blue
except gargamel and azrael, thinly veiled evil jew and cat antagonists
May 31, 2019
really fucking amazing collection of poetry. the fact that this hasn’t gotten the same amount of critical acclaim and attention as jos charles’s feeld is very suspect to me, because it plays with a lot of the same linguistic queerness just as skillfully. might expand on this review once i have the chance to reread it, because this needs a lot of attention. in a really great way.
November 22, 2017
This is a phenomenal collection of poetry that I know I'm underrating by giving it four stars. My only complaint is that Julian Talamantez Brolaski's style of writing in a sort of fusion of olde englishe, country-western cowpoke speak, and genderqueered conversational dialect became a bit overwhelming over the course of the collection, but that also attests to the utter magnitude of the collection. Each poem is deserving of intense critical discussion and dissection, but don't let that make you think that they aren't enjoyable, too. Of Mongrelitude is thoroughly hilarious and biting.
December 28, 2020
brolaski achieves true poetic glory with this collection. i needed to take breaks in between poems at points just because of how heavy and contemplative they were. concepts like the healing power of language, nature, and ancestral connection create a well-rounded collection wherein the poet has crafted a world that centralizes on roots. not for newcomers to poetry, but a real masterpiece of the genre to those who appreciate a complex mythology within each individual piece.
November 26, 2023
red sky at morn
tho what hath been primordial—thir fronte, ofttimes in geste, as in ACCORDANCE they hath pronomounced themself (most onerous) who forsaw (midst all lordlyngs) the hairy belly upraiseth itself from the sepulchre studded w/ flames—that this geste was made hereabouts / one amends their own selfe not a priori the lover but in the act of transing—that’s what their therapist called it—does not one sometimes arrive or end-to-begin? yes DEATH but of a spirit also which goeth nat w/ fleshly mouldings, haha, not w/ that guy anyway. (34)
fried-eyed/banned poetry words
it’s not the russian it’s the wu-tang crushin
—WU-TANG CLAN
slip up and get creped like suzette
travelong to thir erstwhal milieu
steeped in toxins
ever flushing xem out
along the crick the fried fishlings foam
and soak thir minor manticores
battered eyeballs batting at yew
the way the waves in the painting curve
so many telltale infernal tickings
I knew I had to stop writing nonsense.
jack spicer laffed and laffd.
but arturo desimone wasnt laffing at me
and brenda iijima definitely wasnt fucking laughing.
and I used a poem w/ all the banned poetry words, poetry, angels ,
filament (fear of saying ‘thread’), aperture (fear of saying ‘hole’),
rococco, chiaroscuro
especially fucking aperture , most banned poetry word.
and there are more I reckon: thighs, language, the phrase ‘the body’ (it’s the the that does me in, Michael says), gossamer, affected use of overpronounced Spanish in otherwise English-language writing, pearl, pause, breath, anything French, liminal, palimpsest, I, ghosts, souls, beams when used of eyes, azure when applied to sea or sky, any ‘poetic’ terms such as ‘neath, tungsten, thrumming, esoteric plant names, references to fantastical places like Arcadia, also ‘tween and o’er, sand, Greek or Roman god names, desire … yr … instance, espejo, gaze, MYSTICAL, Dear, ‘To Spicer’, banned, gunmetal, all tree names, beyond, erotic, lone, single, all adverbs, we, word/world, hoarfrost, cheesecloth, any nouns made into verbs, ostensibly, matrix, kitsch, sediment, essence, ‘architecture of,’ ‘the social,’ mist, floating, moist especially in the context of a ‘moist night’ or evening, typically any penis, erection, nipple words, eternal, death, quiche; scry, limn, lapidary, sidereal—not banned but groan-worthy—shard, salt, luminous, the phrase ‘in my mind’… (44)
as the owl augurs
I have an hour to read marcabru and fall in love
to study the medicines and put a rock in each corner of the house
and pray over it with pollen as my elder advised
to test my extraordinary knowledgeses
to briefly wonder whether I was actually under a spell
to write my poem about being a mongrel
I must love even the fox that impedes my path
n jettison my former ire n any gesture toward abstraction
n go to the dump finally w/ the disused bicycle tires and the broken antlers and the cracked stained glass of a ship that formerly I wdve harbored because I did not love myself
but the broken shelf
I want namore of it
the jangle-mongrel and the rose and the ndn cowboy that layall closeted
along w/ my availability to my own mind and the killings of our familyes queer and black and brown and ndn
slaughter at orlando symbol of our hermitude
massacre at aravaipa gashdla’á cho o’aa big sycamore standing there
bear river sand creek tulsa rosewood
n when I finally sussed them out
n laid the tequila in its proper trash
n attempted to corral the pony of my mind
they say the ohlone were here as if
there were no more ohlone
erected a fake shellmound called it shellmound avenue
my friends dont like that
my friends dont like that excrement
it’s not like youd give away the algorithm, my bf pointed out,
to the one yr tryin to put a spell on
marcabru uses the word ‘mestissa’ to describe the shepherdess his dickish narrator is poorly courting
which paden translates ‘half-breed’ and pound ‘low-born’ and snodgrass ‘lassie’ but I want to say mongrel, mestiza, mixedbreed
melissima most honeyed most songful
what catullus called his boyfriend’s eyes
honey the color my dead dog’s eyes the stomach of the bee
I’m going to gather pollen from the cattails in a week or two
to pray to the plant tell it I’m only taking what I need
use a coathanger to hook the ones far from shore
filter it thru chiffon four times
what is love
but a constellation of significances
lyke-like magic
los cavecs nos aüra as the owl augurs
one gapes at a painting
the other waits for mahana (90)
tho what hath been primordial—thir fronte, ofttimes in geste, as in ACCORDANCE they hath pronomounced themself (most onerous) who forsaw (midst all lordlyngs) the hairy belly upraiseth itself from the sepulchre studded w/ flames—that this geste was made hereabouts / one amends their own selfe not a priori the lover but in the act of transing—that’s what their therapist called it—does not one sometimes arrive or end-to-begin? yes DEATH but of a spirit also which goeth nat w/ fleshly mouldings, haha, not w/ that guy anyway. (34)
fried-eyed/banned poetry words
it’s not the russian it’s the wu-tang crushin
—WU-TANG CLAN
slip up and get creped like suzette
travelong to thir erstwhal milieu
steeped in toxins
ever flushing xem out
along the crick the fried fishlings foam
and soak thir minor manticores
battered eyeballs batting at yew
the way the waves in the painting curve
so many telltale infernal tickings
I knew I had to stop writing nonsense.
jack spicer laffed and laffd.
but arturo desimone wasnt laffing at me
and brenda iijima definitely wasnt fucking laughing.
and I used a poem w/ all the banned poetry words, poetry, angels ,
filament (fear of saying ‘thread’), aperture (fear of saying ‘hole’),
rococco, chiaroscuro
especially fucking aperture , most banned poetry word.
and there are more I reckon: thighs, language, the phrase ‘the body’ (it’s the the that does me in, Michael says), gossamer, affected use of overpronounced Spanish in otherwise English-language writing, pearl, pause, breath, anything French, liminal, palimpsest, I, ghosts, souls, beams when used of eyes, azure when applied to sea or sky, any ‘poetic’ terms such as ‘neath, tungsten, thrumming, esoteric plant names, references to fantastical places like Arcadia, also ‘tween and o’er, sand, Greek or Roman god names, desire … yr … instance, espejo, gaze, MYSTICAL, Dear, ‘To Spicer’, banned, gunmetal, all tree names, beyond, erotic, lone, single, all adverbs, we, word/world, hoarfrost, cheesecloth, any nouns made into verbs, ostensibly, matrix, kitsch, sediment, essence, ‘architecture of,’ ‘the social,’ mist, floating, moist especially in the context of a ‘moist night’ or evening, typically any penis, erection, nipple words, eternal, death, quiche; scry, limn, lapidary, sidereal—not banned but groan-worthy—shard, salt, luminous, the phrase ‘in my mind’… (44)
as the owl augurs
I have an hour to read marcabru and fall in love
to study the medicines and put a rock in each corner of the house
and pray over it with pollen as my elder advised
to test my extraordinary knowledgeses
to briefly wonder whether I was actually under a spell
to write my poem about being a mongrel
I must love even the fox that impedes my path
n jettison my former ire n any gesture toward abstraction
n go to the dump finally w/ the disused bicycle tires and the broken antlers and the cracked stained glass of a ship that formerly I wdve harbored because I did not love myself
but the broken shelf
I want namore of it
the jangle-mongrel and the rose and the ndn cowboy that layall closeted
along w/ my availability to my own mind and the killings of our familyes queer and black and brown and ndn
slaughter at orlando symbol of our hermitude
massacre at aravaipa gashdla’á cho o’aa big sycamore standing there
bear river sand creek tulsa rosewood
n when I finally sussed them out
n laid the tequila in its proper trash
n attempted to corral the pony of my mind
they say the ohlone were here as if
there were no more ohlone
erected a fake shellmound called it shellmound avenue
my friends dont like that
my friends dont like that excrement
it’s not like youd give away the algorithm, my bf pointed out,
to the one yr tryin to put a spell on
marcabru uses the word ‘mestissa’ to describe the shepherdess his dickish narrator is poorly courting
which paden translates ‘half-breed’ and pound ‘low-born’ and snodgrass ‘lassie’ but I want to say mongrel, mestiza, mixedbreed
melissima most honeyed most songful
what catullus called his boyfriend’s eyes
honey the color my dead dog’s eyes the stomach of the bee
I’m going to gather pollen from the cattails in a week or two
to pray to the plant tell it I’m only taking what I need
use a coathanger to hook the ones far from shore
filter it thru chiffon four times
what is love
but a constellation of significances
lyke-like magic
los cavecs nos aüra as the owl augurs
one gapes at a painting
the other waits for mahana (90)
January 1, 2019
Expands beyond any easy formal container and allows the sense of pleasure to take the lead--in words and in things. I love the really interior private languages of the book.
August 30, 2019
too much, in the good way
October 20, 2025
Read this for my poetry class, and can safely conclude that abstract poetry books are not my thing
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April 12, 2019811.6 B867o 2017
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews