The Pitt News reviewed No One Knows in December 2000. They had a few nice things to say about me, although they obviously think I'm crazy. See for yourself!
Adam Perry's poetry is an intense and often unnerving mix of violence and sexual content. Perry jumps from one surreal scene to the next, blending images as diverse as Jehovah and his choir, a murder and a romantic breakup in a single poem. His language is rich and descriptive, with lines as enigmatic as "a ghostly sanity will juxtapose a sweet undertow" and "a cool organ hums in the dark Dylan dogma."
Perry is an undergraduate at Pitt. This summer, he was mentored by former beat/hippie poet Charles Potts. "No One Knows," his first chapbook, was published by D Press in November. Perry was also published in "The Temple," "Kitty Litter Press," "Adirondack Review" and other publications.
At their best, the poems are vivid and use shock value to force the reader's attention. Lines like "And when your face was full of blood and tears/I pushed open your thighs and made you remember me" are disturbing but powerful...
Perry jumps from scene to scene in a manner that prevents the reader from forming any concrete idea of where the poem is or who the people involved are. Perry's attitudes towards women and sexual situations display a kind of bravado that sometimes alienates the reader. However, he moves away from this in "Suck to Breathe," the strongest poem in the chapbook, which uses violence as a metaphor for the pain of a breakup. Lines like "I can feel her in my fingers, shaking/trembling" display the kind of emotional sincerity some of his other work lacks.
"Love-Struck" marks a different tone from the rest of the poems in the chapbook. This poem describes a kind of archetypal artist whose touch "brings joy, sadness, and confusion." The tone here is idealistic, almost dreamy, a relief from the tension of the other poems. This tone also extends into "Blonde Ecstasy," which attempts to describe the speaker's idea of a perfect world. The contrast between celestial imagery and physical details effectively work out the contrast between the dream and reality.
For a freshman effort, the poet's voice is consistently strong. This is an impressive first chapbook.
I was interviewed by Charles Potts for Comrades UK zine Dec. 6, 2000:
1 What effect are you trying to have on whom with your poetry?
My poetry is often therapeutic. I have always had a hard time
communicating via the spoken word; I actually lived alone when I first starting writing, and the poetry I wrote helped to let out the things I might have said to friends, had I had friends at the time. I suppose the effect I'm trying to have on those who read my work is to take them out of the ordinary, material world for a moment and make things simpler, yet at the same time surreal and beautifully complicated. "existential emptiness and spiritual malnutrition"
someone once said of me. I don't generally think of an audience while writing,
but much of my recent poetry is directed at or written about my girlfriend, who
I love very much.
2 How do you know when a poem is done and at what point do you stop
revising?
A lot of my poems, other than the strict cut-ups, are
moments - emotions caught in small spaces of time when something happens
or fails to happen. Or I'll overhear someone saying something in conversation
and it'll spark a creative joint in my body. It's hard to revise when the
details are very real or seem very real, but late at night is a good time to
just dive back into a piece, like greeting an old lover, and re-work the line
breaks and either OK the content and delivery or just revamp the whole thing.
For instance, while "One Below the Norm" is a poem that has changed over the
past year many times but only in format, different versions of "Suck to
Breathe" have appeared in a bunch of zines, all having distinct changes,
especially the intro ("it's a shame, things were really...") and conclusion. I
know to stop revising when the last beer has been finished and my girlfriend cries with arms outstretched for me to come to bed. "i want my adam."
3 Are there opportunities for other young poets that are close to you?
I don't know what opportunities are yet. I've been in about a dozen
magazines in a handful of states and had a chapbook, big deal. I suppose the
most important thing is to make friends who have already been there. You can
both build up confidence and develop ways of accepting criticism this way. The
person who really got me writing was an assistant of Allen Ginsberg at the
Naropa Institute in Colorado - Steve Silberman, who is now a contributing
editor at Wired Magazine. He taught me that poetry is like jazz, you must
swing - be both behind the beat and in front of it, as well as staying in tune.
"you have a lot of energy," he said, "like Zappa or Thelonious Monk's music is
weird but together, but if you want the poems to last beyond the moment, the
picture must be in focus." The best ways to learn to write poetry, I've
learned, are to read it and to listen to others talk about it. Those are the
best opportunities. Luckily I've been surrounded by people like Richard Denner
and Charles Potts, who have been through the fire, and obviously the 60's.
4 How did you decide which poems to put in No One Knows and which ones to leave
out?
I wanted a longer poem ("Scratch the Surface" previously published in
the Temple Magazine) to be in there, but it just took up too much space. Other
than that, I picked from about 150 that I've done since february, revised,
revised again, and then was forced to narrow it down once again when the
publisher asked. "Love-struck" was added right before the book was done; it was
the first poem I ever read to an audience and it is special to me, although a
professor once scoffed and called it "a singular description of the artist."
5 Which poets have had the most influence on you?
Trick question. The "poet" who has had the most influence on me is my
friend/mentor and daily giver of advice, Charles Potts. The poet's "work" that
has influenced me the most is/are Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Bukowski, Bob Dylan,
and Allen Ginsberg. Although my "writing" is most influenced by William
Burroughs, who isn't a poet. I like to say that my work is somewhere between two distinctly different extremes, maybe Bukowski and Burroughs.
6 What would you like to happen next in your career as a poet?
I want to teach poetry, and I'm in my sophomore year at Pitt, studying
writing. But that's a long ways away. What I'd like NEXT is to have a larger
publisher do a larger run of either No One Knows or an extended version of No
One Knows. Why, are you a genie? Do I get three wishes? Damn, only two left.
I'll take a life's supply of Iron City Beer and the eternal love of Jessica
Knab.
7 If you could publish in any magazine in the country, which one would it be
and why?
Harper's. I've had a subscription for years and it obviously has a big
circulation. The stuff they print is off the wall. Am I off the wall?
8 Do you get more mileage from publishing in old fashioned magazines or on the
net?
I haven't decided yet, but nothing beats the feel and look of a fresh literary journal in the mail - especially with you in it. The Internet is
distancing but I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds.
Do you walk to school or take your lunch? (not a fair question)
Take a lunch? I'm lucky to eat a lunch. I eat pussy more than I eat
lunch.
9 How long does it take to become a poet?
If you write honest poetry you are a poet. Pretty simple. The first
question is always, "are you published?" I know a lot of poets who are five
years older than me, in graduate school or whatever, and haven't been published
once. You have to do something that hasn't been done or cater to what someone
else wants. I guess some people can't do either. Doing something new doesn't
make you a good poet and neither does doing something that's homogenized, but
the first thing is honesty. Thomas Pynchon said "they say to write what you
know, but at that age(my age) you don't know anything." What does it take to
become a poet? Bukowski says "beer. stick with the beer."
10 What do you say to people who tell you they don't like poetry?
You're reading the wrong poetry.
Jesse asked me to display a few of my favorite records, books and movies on this webspace for some insane reason. Here goes:
If You Get Confused, Listen to the Music:
The Clash Sandanista!
Bob Dylan Bringing it All Back Home
Yes Fragile
Big Black Songs About Fucking
Talking Heads Fear of Music
David Byrne David Byrne
Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Papa M Live From a Shark Cage
The Stooges Fun House
Bruce Hornsby Here Come the Noisemakers
Frank Zappa Joe's Garage and Zoot Allures
DJ Shadow Endtroducing...
Richard Hell and the Voidoids The Blank Generation
David Bowie Diamond Dogs
We Can Share the Women, We Can Share the Wine:
Aldous Huxley Brave New World
William Burroughs Wild Boys, Letters 1945-59 and Junky
Charles Potts Valga Krusa and Little Lord Shiva
Carlos Fuentes Aura
Thomas Pynchon Slow Learner
Greil Marcus In The Fascist Bathroom
Charles Bukowski South of No North and Ham on Rye
Tom Wolfe Electric Kool Aid Acid Test
Arthur Rimbaud A Season in Hell
Wake Up to Find Out That You Are the Eyes of the World:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Apocalypse Now
Taxi Driver
Barfly
Intrepid Traveler and the Merry Pranksters Look for a Kool Place
Natural Born Killers
Singles
Drugstore Cowboy
Willy Wonka
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
My e-mail address is MPpedro@aol.com.
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