Pride and Prejudice — OLLIE SCHMINKEY

Happy Pride! It’s been a whirlwind over here, and it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day!

A very cute little celebration surprise my partner made for me to help welcome Don’t Be Afraid to Be Bad into the world!

WHAT’S NEW

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Bad is officially in the world! We welcomed them into the world on May 26th— at 8 and a half inches and 0 lbs 8.4 ounces, this is a healthy baby book!

This book is a prompt book— featuring a poem from nearly every author in the Button Poetry catalog, you’ll explore the wonderful world of “after” poems and get tons of fresh, hot inspiration (and maybe discover a new favorite author along the way). There are also a bunch of bonus prompts at the end, and few words by me in the front explaining why I don’t want to catch you being afraid to be bad! You can get a copy here.

LAVENDER MIC, DENVER, CO

See you in a few days, Colorado! I’m excited to read a bunch of a new poems, a couple of old poems, and to hear whatever poems you have to bring! Tickets here.

LET’S GET PUBLISHED: POETRY EDITING AND SUBMISSION INTENSIVE

This course is filling up so fast (thanks, everybody, by the way— honored!) If you want to snag one of the last slots, you can do so here.

“LAND OF 10,000 LAKES” AT LANESBORO ARTS

Lanesboro Art’s Carrying Each Other is up through August 2nd! This exhibition features over 15 artists, and some of the ways in which we have responded to the violence and fear (and love and community) of the occupation here in the winter. You can get more info here. It was an honor to have my poem be included!

PROMPT

You can listen to Semler’s song here if you’re feeling it!

POEM

I’ve been writing a lot (a lot!) but have also been submitting a lot of that work to journals, etc, which means a lot of it has to stay secret for now. Instead, I present to you a rare offering, my own first draft response to the prompt above:

& as the fish twitches for the last time,

i have the terrible honor of taking its life.

a man on the dock has handed me

his long nosed pliers, & i use the heft of its

handle in three sharp whacks against

where the man instructs me is the spinal column.

i have, of course, tried to go fishing without the help of a man.

my friend & i have both cleaved something from our bodies,

& we sit, flat chested against the sun,

transforming the dock into a gay bar,

pbrs tucked into koozies that are,

inevitably, free merch from our gay mortgage lending company,

& we fish while we talk about vaginal vs clitoral stimulation

& how amazing it is to experience pleasure by such different means--

& then, of course, the man who will eventually

lend me the tool of death walks onto the dock

with 6-12 children of varying ages,

& my friend & i share one long look,

then continue talking.

i don’t know if the man can hear us,

if the sentence, “i don’t want to buy a

g-spot vibrator because it’s only controlled via a phone app,”

reaches him. but eventually, i catch my first fish

& he celebrates with us good naturedly.

i have caught my first fish by myself since my father died,

& somehow, the dock has offered up a miracle

as the man on it says, “Look at you go!

You’re clearly doing something right as a fisherperson.”

we have been delivered, by way of god

or good sex or dumb luck,

the most progressive man fishing on a dock that has

ever, truly, ever, existed, & he not only knows where

his lane is, but he stays in it, offering kind jokes

& the sorts of compliments that don’t creep you out even a little,

& i am grateful. i have never been fishing with a man

who respected me. i have come here today, in part,

because of my father. because my childhood was spent

knee deep in rivers, albums of photographs of me

holding fish as big as my body, every hour spent

against a muddy bank with the hum of mosquitoes in my ears.

& my hands still know how to pinch of a section of worm

with my fingernails, instinctively know how to loop it back

through the hook so it stays on while casting.

when the fish bites, a joy rises up so familiar

that it is nothing less than coming home,

as a ghost guides my hand, & my thumb

looks like my father’s as i know without knowing

how to press the top fin down, squeeze tightly.

& at home, while gutting the fish,

the smell of the blood on the newspaper

is nothing less than a resurrection,

as every childhood meal is summoned back to me,

as my grandmother laughs in the garage,

as my father plays steve miller on the back deck,

& i cook the fish the way father always did,

& as i take my first bite,

it tastes good.

PETE

It’s been Cuddle City in our house this week (and I just personally love how funny a cat looks when they yawn).

OLLIE’S THOUGHT CORNER

Today’s “essay” will be brief, but I’ve been spending my scraps of free time processing the very recently learned fact (to me) that hell is not real! By which I mean…

Despite what Midwestern billboards might claim, there’s not actually very much theological proof for the existence of hell (like, maaaaybe 1-2 passages), and most of the translations of the word “hell” are actually referring to the valley next door. I am astounded to be learning of this in my 32nd year of life. As someone who grew up Catholic, the concept of hell followed me everywhere I went-- I grew up believing so earnestly and genuinely in hell, divine retribution, etc, that I’m still unpacking religious trauma decades later.

It is hard to truly explain the damage that hell can do to a child, if you were not a child that grew up believing in hell. I find myself struggling every time I try to write about it, partially because these beliefs are so common that a lot of people tend to diminish the impact (as if something can’t be both widespread and harmful--hello, patriarchy, and all the -isms). I find myself sometimes being one of those people, trying to downplay my experiences.

But for me, believing in hell had real, tangible impacts on my life that came with huge consequences. For example, when I was being emotionally and sexually abused by my boyfriend in high school, I thought that my only choice was to stay with him because of what he had done to me (no one ever taught me that it was possible to be sexually assaulted by someone you were dating, so I assumed I had committed a “sin”-- through some backwards logic, I convinced myself that if we got married, I would be able to atone for the “sin” of being raped). Like, what??? I escaped that situation by the skin of my teeth, with the help of my high school speech coach, who also just so happened to be a social worker. It is only by a very narrow margin and some good fortune that I did not get married at 18 to someone who abused me for months. As a Catholic, I also didn’t believe in divorce; I could have been trapped for my entire life (and many of the adult women in my life actually were trapped with abusive husbands for decades-- this was not a far-fetched possibility).

Of course, I don’t think that anyone in my religious community intended for me to internalize the message exactly in that way, but the fact of it is that I did. And the fact of it is that I grew up in such a sex-negative culture that I didn’t have anyone to talk to about the nonconsensual things that were happening to me. I didn’t even have anyone to tell me that those things were nonconsensual (at the time, I thought there had to be a knife involved for it to “count.”)

I was left with a trauma that has impacted me deeply for over a decade, made more complicated by the fact that at the time it happened, I truly and wholeheartedly believed it was not only my fault, but something that would damn my eternal soul.

And now, to learn that the whole time, hell is literally not even a strong concept in the Bible. In some ways, I feel cheated-- I had invested vast quantities of time, effort, self-policing, other-policing, and shame into nitpicking my every action. But mostly, I just feel like a weight I didn’t know I was carrying has been lifted. I haven’t believed in Christianity for many years, and still, part of me had been holding onto this fear. What if I was wrong? What if there truly would be some sort of reckoning? (Just a few casual thoughts to keep me up at night).

But-- get this-- they made it up! If this is news to you, I give this info to you as a pride month gift.

Hell is not real! Let us rejoice and be glad!

Xo,

Ollie