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IRL
IRL is a sweaty, summertime poem composed like a long text message, rooted in the epic tradition of A.R. Ammons, ancient Kumeyaay Bird Songs, and Beyoncé’s visual albums. It follows Teebs, a reservation-born, queer NDN weirdo, trying to figure out his impulses/desires/history in the midst of Brooklyn rooftops, privacy in the age of the Internet, street harassment, suicide, boys boys boys, literature, colonialism, religion, leaving one's 20s, and a love/hate relationship with English. He’s plagued by an indecision, unsure of which obsessions, attractions, and impulses are essentially his, and which are the result of Christian conversion, hetero-patriarchal/colonialist white supremacy, homophobia, Bacardi, gummy candy, and not getting laid.
IRL asks, what happens to a modern, queer indigenous person a few generations after his ancestors were alienated from their language, their religion, and their history? Teebs feels compelled towards “boys, burgers,booze,” though he begins to suspect there is perhaps a more ancient goddess calling to him behind art, behind music, behind poetry.
IRL asks, what happens to a modern, queer indigenous person a few generations after his ancestors were alienated from their language, their religion, and their history? Teebs feels compelled towards “boys, burgers,booze,” though he begins to suspect there is perhaps a more ancient goddess calling to him behind art, behind music, behind poetry.
Audiobook
First published September 1, 2016
67 people are currently reading
1826 people want to read
About the author
Tommy Pico
8 books331 followersTommy “Teebs” Pico is 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 was the founder and editor in chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that published art and writing from 2008-2013. He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, 2016 Ace Hotel New York “Dear Reader” resident, 2016 Tin House summer poetry scholar, was longlisted for Cosmonauts Avenue’s inaugural poetry prize (judged by Claudia Rankine), and has poems in BOMB, Poetry magazine, Tin House, and elsewhere. He’s read for New York’s iconic Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, the KGB reading series, and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) amongst many others, and has been profiled in Fusion, Nylon, and the New Yorker. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn where he co-curates the reading series Poets With Attitude (PWA) with Morgan Parker at the Ace Hotel, co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub.
Photo credit: Niqui Carter
Photo credit: Niqui Carter
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 208 reviews
April 30, 2021
Imma crack open
the mythology for u—
Really there are four
states of Muse:
Solitude
Intimacy
Anonymity
Reserve
Solitude carries a deck
of cards. Intimacy brought
lube. Anonymity is here
I think. Reserve gives gift
certificates. Obviously.
The influence of Muse
is not unlike being under
the influence, the way a poem
is spontaneously drunk
on Robert Graves. The
implications of Muse pop
fizz in all directions: pho-
tography, printing press,
telephone, flash fry, cave etc.
The temple of Muse
is all around you.
I listened to Tommy Pico narrate the audiobook while reading the ebook on my computer at the same time, just to see how he interprets his own fragmented and symbol-heavy text as spoken word. It is beautifully evocative and wonderfully read, like having a long conversation with a really interesting person you don’t want to ever stop listening to.
Interestingly, there are quite a few word substitutions and even extra lines here and there in the audiobook, and oddly on occasion different names. But listening to this, I think the audiobook can be taken as the ‘correct text’, as it does correct some obvious errors. But a lot of the substitution is not obvious, so I wonder how on earth one proofs/edits a crazy-ass work of poetry like this?
I work in PR (technical writing) and do a lot of copy editing and research and fact-checking on a daily basis. You’d think that reading something as unstructured and as messy as this long-verse poem would cause my OCD to kick into overdrive … Instead, I revel in how Pico manages to make language bloom into so many different and exotic configurations, all centred on, circling around, and returning to the subject of his mercurial Muse.
the mythology for u—
Really there are four
states of Muse:
Solitude
Intimacy
Anonymity
Reserve
Solitude carries a deck
of cards. Intimacy brought
lube. Anonymity is here
I think. Reserve gives gift
certificates. Obviously.
The influence of Muse
is not unlike being under
the influence, the way a poem
is spontaneously drunk
on Robert Graves. The
implications of Muse pop
fizz in all directions: pho-
tography, printing press,
telephone, flash fry, cave etc.
The temple of Muse
is all around you.
I listened to Tommy Pico narrate the audiobook while reading the ebook on my computer at the same time, just to see how he interprets his own fragmented and symbol-heavy text as spoken word. It is beautifully evocative and wonderfully read, like having a long conversation with a really interesting person you don’t want to ever stop listening to.
Interestingly, there are quite a few word substitutions and even extra lines here and there in the audiobook, and oddly on occasion different names. But listening to this, I think the audiobook can be taken as the ‘correct text’, as it does correct some obvious errors. But a lot of the substitution is not obvious, so I wonder how on earth one proofs/edits a crazy-ass work of poetry like this?
I work in PR (technical writing) and do a lot of copy editing and research and fact-checking on a daily basis. You’d think that reading something as unstructured and as messy as this long-verse poem would cause my OCD to kick into overdrive … Instead, I revel in how Pico manages to make language bloom into so many different and exotic configurations, all centred on, circling around, and returning to the subject of his mercurial Muse.
September 13, 2017
it would be easy to say this is like frank o'hara in the age of twitter but really it's tommy pico in the age of GREAT POETRY:
"Girard is not coming
over, which almost
makes me mad
But he says sorry,
says he wishes he
hadn't made plans
Wishes he could be
with me, and the
phrase "be with"
is a deference
to a kind of growing
infection
I mean affection inside
him that is not
growing inside me, so I
don't respond. If he
said "I'll fuck you
Tuesday" I would
have :-) :-) :-) If
Muse ever texted me
I would :-) :-) :-) If
Muse texted "I
want to be with you"
I would have a
minor coronary incident,
would have to dic-
tate this from Woodhull
Medical Center as I
surely would have
passed head-
first into the evening's
net of basket of
hammer
of stars.
There's my body,
and then there's your body--
basically the plot
of every Beyoncé song"
"The allure
of Muse, is shirk.
Like Adderall--like cheat code
A prayer that something
easy
will emerge, replace the work
required to make love
or art or peace
or thin or smart
or trill or public
healthy interventions on NDN
reservations."
"There is a golden orbit around
a start where liquid water is keen,
instead of frozen interlocked
or admixed into gases--a
three bears situation.
Similarly, sometimes yr not
looking to get wifed up.
You just want to fuck,
get slapped in the face,
and not hug. But in your
own bed Not w/a total
stranger & somewhat on the regs
And why not--Let's order
a pizza? afterward. This golden
orbit is called Tender/Casual/Fun
and not an orbit for everyone."
"Girard is not coming
over, which almost
makes me mad
But he says sorry,
says he wishes he
hadn't made plans
Wishes he could be
with me, and the
phrase "be with"
is a deference
to a kind of growing
infection
I mean affection inside
him that is not
growing inside me, so I
don't respond. If he
said "I'll fuck you
Tuesday" I would
have :-) :-) :-) If
Muse ever texted me
I would :-) :-) :-) If
Muse texted "I
want to be with you"
I would have a
minor coronary incident,
would have to dic-
tate this from Woodhull
Medical Center as I
surely would have
passed head-
first into the evening's
net of basket of
hammer
of stars.
There's my body,
and then there's your body--
basically the plot
of every Beyoncé song"
"The allure
of Muse, is shirk.
Like Adderall--like cheat code
A prayer that something
easy
will emerge, replace the work
required to make love
or art or peace
or thin or smart
or trill or public
healthy interventions on NDN
reservations."
"There is a golden orbit around
a start where liquid water is keen,
instead of frozen interlocked
or admixed into gases--a
three bears situation.
Similarly, sometimes yr not
looking to get wifed up.
You just want to fuck,
get slapped in the face,
and not hug. But in your
own bed Not w/a total
stranger & somewhat on the regs
And why not--Let's order
a pizza? afterward. This golden
orbit is called Tender/Casual/Fun
and not an orbit for everyone."
December 31, 2024
playful but gut-wrenching & raw, which is not a balance you often see struck
July 22, 2018
This was great, but I kind of regret not getting the audiobook. Maybe next time.
March 1, 2017
Reads like scrolling a feed, complete with clickbait - Pico can use a line break like a hairpin turn, suggesting something and then snapping it into a new context when the new line starts. IRL is nervous and alive in a way that makes me want to be both of those things.
February 22, 2017
A dizzy, playful, self-conscious poem that explores language, longing, indigeneity, and Instagram. After one page I thought I would hate this, but somewhere around page three I found a rhythm and enjoyed the hell out of this. Recommended, even if you don't normally read poetry!
March 31, 2017
The ending of this poem ruined my life
May 3, 2020
This took me a year to read and maybe it’ll take you a year too but if all poetry were like this I’d take a year to read it all.
July 16, 2024
This long poem is remarkable: meditation, memoir, kaleidoscope, and satire, sometimes all at once. I don’t have the language to describe the subtle depth or massive breadth of this work, but consider the following excerpted blurbs:
Simone White: “a gleeful combination of exuberance and threat.”
Ariana Reines: “ the poem keeps pushing out from under history, out behind the poem’s own billion negations, into a space, both beyond identity and deep with it.”
Read IRL.
Simone White: “a gleeful combination of exuberance and threat.”
Ariana Reines: “ the poem keeps pushing out from under history, out behind the poem’s own billion negations, into a space, both beyond identity and deep with it.”
Read IRL.
August 11, 2019
I loved this poem, and I especially enjoyed hearing it read by the author. There is a lot going on in this piece, and the way Pico weaves together so many different topics and ideas is incredible. I had to listen twice to even start to absorb the depth of this poem, and I think this is something I could continue to listen to and get new gems from every time.
May 26, 2020
Loved this
March 9, 2017
Pico's epic poem is beautiful and healing and frustrating and QUEER. Covering learning to be a human in New York to legacies of genocide in his Native heritage to finding a boy to fuck, Pico twirls and soars with lilting prose and varying punctuation. The poem is not easy to read but that does not take away from its brilliance. In fact, I enjoyed having to re read whole pages to get a better understanding of what was happening, the language is so playful and often times packed with meaning that makes re reading and working worth the effort. I love that the poem travels all over the place and isn't some nicely wrapped up item, more reflective of how life happens. HIGHLY RECOMMEND to anybody looking for lit that's kinda weird or alternative to more normative poetry. So, basically everyone.
December 21, 2018
IRL is a poem, but it’s also one big text message about love and life and history and how the Internet fucks with it all. Tommy Pico has a wonderful voice and I will read everything he writes, forever and ever.
From 18 Powerful Poetry Books Like Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur at Book Riot.
From 18 Powerful Poetry Books Like Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur at Book Riot.
Read
August 31, 2023"Writers / should never be the hero / of their own work. / Be a hero IRL or whatever? / but don't write to be a hero-- / That shit's disgusting."
"u live yr life n after u die, writing / lives on--says whatever / it wants about you. Like / leaving a party alone and / catching the train to rem- / ember every dumb ass thing / u said?"
"u live yr life n after u die, writing / lives on--says whatever / it wants about you. Like / leaving a party alone and / catching the train to rem- / ember every dumb ass thing / u said?"
December 7, 2020
I’m not sure if I’ve ever read something that so clearly encapsulates the flood of words we have to swim through these days that also so clearly communicates the author’s experience, identity, and awareness of how external political conditions have shaped one’s reality.
“America
Reclines undying I want America
To know who is still dying
For its sins.”
“America
Reclines undying I want America
To know who is still dying
For its sins.”
October 27, 2016
Tommy Pico's book length poem reads like a drunken, stoned night out on the dance floor. I read this poem and was transformed back to my most favorite and messy nights. This poem is smart, sassy, and sexy!
April 20, 2018
The audiobook, read by the author, contributes a sense of intimacy that make these already poems, in which the author delves into the various aspects of his identity as a gay man and as a Native American, into an intimate experience.
October 7, 2017
Poetry is hard.
June 7, 2018
Reading poetry is not usually my thing, frankly - and that speaks to how good this poetry/text message is. Conveys a powerful message about race and sexuality and the human condition. I couldn't put it down - and it lingers. In a profound way.
April 5, 2025
Rather amazing how the topics move so seamlessly deeper into themes and moods. Some of them sneak up on you and others feel like Pico carved a specific cave for you to fall in. I will be reading more of his work.
August 17, 2018
The ending transcends.
April 30, 2018
Tommy Pico is amazing - I loved Nature Poem so much more than this one though. 3.5 stars.
give me all of
the knowledge I'll take
too much of everything
There is a kind of power
in being reviled for just being
in the sense that my
scooped shoulders, the snake
of my neck, my bare legs
strikes frenzy I scare them
something in the lumen
jolts, terror or desire, hate
so swoll it destabilizes some-
thing about their every day...
...That is not power
I have, but have been
granted. It's more marble
than I can handle,
more ambient fear than I
want swirling in my wake.
July 31, 2022
I’m gonna write this review in Tommy Pico’s style in the book bc it’s just so inspiring n shit k? I love it when poets do that thing where they’re too honest aka they tell you the ugly things and don’t even try to cover them up w/ pretty ones Wish I could write like that more ngl. Could read this book over and over probably bc the content. the references. the thought jumps. the realness. couldn’t have expectations and it still exceeded them. The last three pages had me flutter-chested even tho it doesn’t have a plot. Right? Truly delivered a mic drop moment idk what else to say abt it. Read it.
Here are some fav parts:
“It’s
summer, I think, and I hate
nature bc every poem
is like Poplars and Bunch
Grasses and Peonies
and shit, but the East River
is ambling outside my window
like holding hands
with Stevie Nicks:
so beautiful right, but also
deafening, and kinda
scary, and I feel small
online and in real life
bc there’s my body
and then there’s your body,
and I don’t think anybody’s
coming over tonight.”
(20-21)
“The buffer of wanting
crush to take effect inside
the Crush, this seeding,
is like any dark u prepare
for Like sleep, like knowledge
of death n exes’ marriages.
It’s agonizing. It keeps
me, the rag & bone ghosts
of my sleep, tense. “Wanting
to be stolen” wraps
me in its fag fingers
on the subway, behind the wheel
@ signs for eyes
when I should be paying
attention to ballet, musical,
whatever art happens in dark
rooms like womb.”
(50-51)
“Writing is created for accounting
and still does, but is also a
bulging storage space Fuck
I’m a hoarder I give my books
away.”
(69)
“My dad grows
his hair long Black waves
cascade down his back b/c knives
crop the ceremony of his
mother's hair at the NDN boarding
school I cut mine in mourning
for the old life but I grow
my poems long. A dark
reminder on white pages.”
(97)
Here are some fav parts:
“It’s
summer, I think, and I hate
nature bc every poem
is like Poplars and Bunch
Grasses and Peonies
and shit, but the East River
is ambling outside my window
like holding hands
with Stevie Nicks:
so beautiful right, but also
deafening, and kinda
scary, and I feel small
online and in real life
bc there’s my body
and then there’s your body,
and I don’t think anybody’s
coming over tonight.”
(20-21)
“The buffer of wanting
crush to take effect inside
the Crush, this seeding,
is like any dark u prepare
for Like sleep, like knowledge
of death n exes’ marriages.
It’s agonizing. It keeps
me, the rag & bone ghosts
of my sleep, tense. “Wanting
to be stolen” wraps
me in its fag fingers
on the subway, behind the wheel
@ signs for eyes
when I should be paying
attention to ballet, musical,
whatever art happens in dark
rooms like womb.”
(50-51)
“Writing is created for accounting
and still does, but is also a
bulging storage space Fuck
I’m a hoarder I give my books
away.”
(69)
“My dad grows
his hair long Black waves
cascade down his back b/c knives
crop the ceremony of his
mother's hair at the NDN boarding
school I cut mine in mourning
for the old life but I grow
my poems long. A dark
reminder on white pages.”
(97)
June 14, 2024
this book-length poem is a sit down, swallow-it-all-whole experience. wow. i had been in a Big of a poetry slump but this… i’m back!!! thank you!! s/o fiona for sharing this gem with me! <3
“Whatevs, discretion / is alienating Intimacy takes / too damn long And third thing. / I love a good boast / like I love a god good gossip: / I am so good at being Alone” (32).
“Likin a boy, wanting to be public / with that like, bein all he-ey / or PDA / is very grave for ppl / like us secrets r quaint. / Privacy is on its last leg” (39)
“I think, shame on me / and go on like horizon— / largely featureless / in yr eyes. OR learn to say / what does that mean? / Which is an actual Vista, / brewing a conversation / But feels like a hammer / of stars” (48)
“Would that saying were doing, / invoking were curing, / cutting were outing, / I’d have spelled myself home / Spelled the ruptures’ sutures / a thousand times by now” (83).
“Right, I want mad passionate / constant lava I’ll hold / yr hand on water / Nestle chins on chins on chins / Dizzy or just bc / You break like scales / over me I am brave / We are set in Jello, / stuffed into carpets, / fall on top of each other / like snow Gentle / and always a different / body We live through / our bodies, into the force / we started as” (90).
“Whatevs, discretion / is alienating Intimacy takes / too damn long And third thing. / I love a good boast / like I love a god good gossip: / I am so good at being Alone” (32).
“Likin a boy, wanting to be public / with that like, bein all he-ey / or PDA / is very grave for ppl / like us secrets r quaint. / Privacy is on its last leg” (39)
“I think, shame on me / and go on like horizon— / largely featureless / in yr eyes. OR learn to say / what does that mean? / Which is an actual Vista, / brewing a conversation / But feels like a hammer / of stars” (48)
“Would that saying were doing, / invoking were curing, / cutting were outing, / I’d have spelled myself home / Spelled the ruptures’ sutures / a thousand times by now” (83).
“Right, I want mad passionate / constant lava I’ll hold / yr hand on water / Nestle chins on chins on chins / Dizzy or just bc / You break like scales / over me I am brave / We are set in Jello, / stuffed into carpets, / fall on top of each other / like snow Gentle / and always a different / body We live through / our bodies, into the force / we started as” (90).
December 6, 2016
A challenging piece of fringy Brooklyn literature. The verse is compressed and demands unpacking; I found myself reading it in bits and pieces at a slow pace. The story told here involves the everyday life of a Brooklyn poet, and telescopes into his neurotic thoughts of the crushes/relationships in his life, told in a punning stream of consciousness voice. His experiences dating, and the things people say on social networks that annoy him, filter through his head as he draws the connections to racism, homophobia and other forms of social oppression. Undergirding the scattered thought-lines and scenes of his present life, are his experiences and trauma from growing up on a Kumeyaay reservation. The poet's use of stream of consciousness narrative to generate a chaotic, anxiety-ridden matrix of thought, is an effective and relatable depiction of modern experience. This single long poem covers a lot of topical ground, and comes together in several inspiring parts with profound reflections on, and questions about his personal identity.
October 18, 2023
As soon as I finished it, I wanted to begin again.
From
"Fireworks
pop fizz in all directions,
but being in a backyard
surrounded by brownstones
you only get the thunder
and the shudder-- war outside
the walls But we've liquor n
Mariah n we're poets,
so we talk about temporal
locations of audio- trauma
and we talk about
margaritas. We blab about
the battle from the backyard."
to
"We just get com-
fortable with each other
at a time when comfort
something come stop the shaking
is more important than
privacy."
This piece is is hard to describe without sounding corny. It's like being the ghost in the mirror of someone looking in the mirror, putting on too much makeup and the new face makes them miserable but they have to. Then we get to watch as they slowly remove the faces, accepting some, rejecting others, searching for more, yet identifying with all. I felt like a voyeur, but I think that's partly the intention.
And the way it comes to an end is both a punch in the gut and a relief... like a proper climax should be.
From
"Fireworks
pop fizz in all directions,
but being in a backyard
surrounded by brownstones
you only get the thunder
and the shudder-- war outside
the walls But we've liquor n
Mariah n we're poets,
so we talk about temporal
locations of audio- trauma
and we talk about
margaritas. We blab about
the battle from the backyard."
to
"We just get com-
fortable with each other
at a time when comfort
something come stop the shaking
is more important than
privacy."
This piece is is hard to describe without sounding corny. It's like being the ghost in the mirror of someone looking in the mirror, putting on too much makeup and the new face makes them miserable but they have to. Then we get to watch as they slowly remove the faces, accepting some, rejecting others, searching for more, yet identifying with all. I felt like a voyeur, but I think that's partly the intention.
And the way it comes to an end is both a punch in the gut and a relief... like a proper climax should be.
July 7, 2017
I love Tommy Pico's chatty voice & his sly turns of phrase that allow him to hop from queer internetty Muse-ings to deep, personal reflections on the effects of US settler colonialism, all within a few short lines. The language and longing of this epic poem (divided into little chunks offset by those text message typing dots) really gives you the sense of a speaker and a self in constant motion (between 1 thought and another, between the reservation & Brooklyn, between the public self & private self, etc, etc.) in a way that I've never quite seen before. He makes so many rapid fire connections through sound & image that I'm probably going to end up re-reading this a few times before the summer's over just to get a fuller appreciation of the work he's done here.
May 30, 2018
I really enjoyed Nature Poem, but I think I liked IRL just as much if not better. The form worked well for me, and I found the continual flow to be the right amount of absorbing and provocative. A favorite little section of mine:
There is a kind of power
in being reviled
for just being
in the sense that my
scooped shoulders, the snake
of my neck, my bare legs
strikes frenzy I scare them
Something in the lumen
jolts, terror or desire, hate
so swoll it destabilizes some-
thing about their everyday Some-
thing bubbling, shuddering
under the brushstroke
of stars. ...
There is a kind of power
in being reviled
for just being
in the sense that my
scooped shoulders, the snake
of my neck, my bare legs
strikes frenzy I scare them
Something in the lumen
jolts, terror or desire, hate
so swoll it destabilizes some-
thing about their everyday Some-
thing bubbling, shuddering
under the brushstroke
of stars. ...
February 7, 2019
Pico has a gift for manic and sustained poetry: everyday epics that deal with the banalities and beauties of queer, Native American life. Rooted deeply in summer daily drag, Pico channels a lot of the observation skill of a poet like Frank O'hara with the energy of a slam poet. Pico is as comfortable ruminating on identity as he is talking about Netflix and Instagram, his lines are often surprising but like many American poets since Whitman, he tries to allow all things to show up honestly. It's a really promising book-length poem.
July 16, 2017
There's no conflict here between the exploration of contemporary urban queer life (along with its frustrations, joys, and vanities) and the intergenerational colonialist trauma of losing one's tribal history and language. Every facet of experience—mundane or profound or just TMI—is fair game in IRL, filtered through a voice that zips from playfully irreverent to deeply thoughtful and back sometimes in the span of a single sentence.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 208 reviews