Paul Fericano is a working class poet, satirist and social activist. He is the author of The Hollywood Catechism (Silver Birch Press) and several more poetry and prose books and chapbooks, including Interview with the Scalia, Commercial Break, Driving to Reno with Freud, and Loading the Revolver With Real Bullets. He is the editor and co-founder of Yossarian Universal (1980), the nation’s first parody news service, and he is a founder of SafeNet, an advocacy group that assists survivors of clergy sexual abuse by fixing on healing and restorative justice; he also writes an online column about this work, A Room with a Pew.
Since 1971, his poetry and prose have appeared, disappeared and reappeared in various underground and above-ground literary and media outlets in this country and abroad, including: The Antarctic Review, Inside Joke, Mother Jones, Poetry Now, Projector, The Realist, Saturday Night Live, SoHo Arts Weekly, Vagabond, The Wormwood Review, and Catavencu Incomod (Romania), Charlie Hebdo (Paris), Il Male (Italy), Krokodil (Moscow), Pardon (Germany), Punch (London) and Satyrcón (Argentina). Paul Fericano received the Howitzer Prize for his poem, “Sinatra, Sinatra,” an award he himself created and exposed as a literary hoax to reveal the absurd nature of competitive awards. The following year, Commercial Break received both the Prix de Voltaire (Paris) and the Ambrose Bierce Prize (San Francisco) for upholding the traditions of socio-political satire. He resides on the San Francisco peninsula.
Because I am valuing order at the moment, I thought I'd start at the beginning -- literally. The front matter of your book includes praise from a variety of newspapers & publications both here and across the pond. I noticed that several described you by summoning the language of subterfuge, such as how you write "like a wanted man hiding out in the basement of Poetry magazine" (Chicago Sun-Times) or that "if a witness protection program" existed for poets, you'd be in it (Washington Post Book World). How does your work, and this book in particular, connect to the covert?
Yeah. If you talk to some of my friends they’ll swear they never heard of me. The Hollywood Catechism represents the progressive arc my narrative has taken since my high school seminary days at a Franciscan boarding school in the sixties. My desire to write conspired with my need to be funny which collided with my vocation to serve God. As a naïve fourteen year old freshman I was taught that God and poetry were essentially great because both were solemn and unfathomable. In English class we were instructed to examine not feel. Poems were prayers and prayers were sacred with no hint that ancient writers even knew what a joke was.
What little I knew of poetry and God was encyclopedic compared to what I knew about sex and my own body. During this time the priest who ran my screwy English class was sexually assaulting me under the guise of medical treatment. I was a fearful, angry and depressed kid, ashamed and confused about something I couldn’t name. The irony of my dismal situation was almost comical. I was studying to be a priest in the house of God, being molested by a priest who was teaching me English, and looking for salvation in poetry.
One day in religion class, after reading the story of “Mr. Blue,” a modern day parable about a crazy character who doesn’t fit in, I began to write my thoughts in a daily journal. The tide turned for me near the end of my freshman year when I discovered a battered copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy wedged behind a toilet tank in the seminary’s main bathrooms. Some of the pages were torn out which led me to believe the book was not just there for reading. I’d been ignorant my entire short life until I opened that book. For the first time since my arrival I felt someone was speaking directly to me. Six months later I left the seminary for good.
What happened after you left?
By 1977, I was reading and learning from living poets like Edward Field, Wanda Coleman, A.D. Winans, Ron Koertge, Al Young, Laurel Speer, Steve Kowit, Ishmael Reed, Sharon Olds and Gerald Locklin while promoting a second collection of my own poetry, Loading the Revolver with Real Bullets, published by Second Coming Press of San Francisco, my hometown. The year before I had instigated “stoogism,” a mock-literary movement that Allen Ginsberg dubbed “the only movement with a punch line.” The label “standup poet” was being attached to my name and I was playing the role of court jester in a crowded throne room. It was an exciting time to be involved in the small press literary scene.
Stoogism
i dreamt of Moe
last night
he was crying
he took
the laughter
out of his head
and thanked me
and when I saw
myself
about to cry
he whispered:
wake up
and go to sleep
and i did
And then you morphed from satirist to provocateur!
The following year my poetry and politics got me in trouble with the California State Senate. A short, eighteen-line poem from my second collection was photocopied, distributed, and read on the floor of the senate by Bob Wilson, a senator from Costa Mesa. Wilson used it as a reason why the California Arts Council (CAC) should be abolished. The poem in question, “The Three Stooges at a Hollywood Party,” was a spoof of American conservatism.
Wilson claimed it slandered actors John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Stuart Whitman and Glen Campbell, who were all mentioned in the poem. Since the book had been published with grant money from the CAC, the senator argued that California would likely be sued for libel. Within hours of his stunt several major news outlets picked up the story, including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian of London, and even the Soviet news agency Tass, which allegedly tried to use the films of the Three Stooges as propaganda for capitalist violence. Dozens of newspapers published the poem. By the end of the year, the book had nearly sold out.
What kind of stage are you setting, so to speak, with a photograph of Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry on the cover of this book?
There’s a lot going on there. There’s the hucksterism of religion and the mumbo jumbo beliefs portrayed in the movie by an actor who, in real life, was a free thinker and champion of liberal causes. There are issues of veneration, hypocrisy and self-delusion presented in the context of a Hollywood culture that survived the McCarthy witch hunts and most of Mickey Rooney’s films. There’s the foible of star idolatry wedded to divine providence. Reciting prayers, memorizing lines and writing poetry are subversive acts. Religious devotion and celebrity worship demand allegiance, but poetry does best when it steers clear of any nonsense that defines it as something better than something else. The book’s cover also represents some personal mischief. Burt Lancaster bears an uncanny resemblance to my father.
Reading this book felt like eating a wild stew of American socioculture and celebrity: Poe and Freud appear alongside Curly and Moe from The Three Stooges; Lon Chaney, Jr. "howls" in the manner of Allen Ginsberg; God throws the hammer down on the "First Lady of Radio" Kate Smith; Porky Pig translates Basho; and Sinatra is defined as an multi-tiered entry in a dictionary. What is important about this kind of collaging? What does it add to the even greater gumbo of American letters?
It extends the reach of my own poetry by relating to time and place and reminding me to take the writing seriously but not the self. (The only thing good about self-importance is that Trump has given it a bad name.) I have no idea what my work adds to that steaming pot of literary mush. The danger of being as relevant as yesterday’s news comes with the territory and I willingly accept it.
[But] missing the mark means you took the shot. I like breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly into the camera. The late poet Ann Menebroker aptly described this rebellion as “Chico Marxist.” Lampoons, parodies and spoofs in literature are hazardous grinds that exact a price and take a toll. Poems like “Sinatra, Sinatra,” “The Director’s Prayer,” and “Howl of Lon Chaney, Jr.” dare readers to take their hands off the wheel and close their eyes.
Sinatra, Sinatra
Sexual reference:
A protruding sinatra
is often laughed at by serious women.
Medical procedure:
A malignant sinatra
must be cut out by a skilled surgeon.
Violent persuasion:
A sawed-off sinatra
is a dangerous weapon at close range.
Congressional question:
Do you deny the charge of ever being
involved in organized sinatra?
Prepared statement:
Kiss my sinatra.
Blow it out your sinatra.
Financial question:
Will supply-side sinatra halt inflation?
Empty expression:
The sinatra stops here.
The sinatra is quicker than the eye.
Strategic question:
Do you think it's possible to win
a limited nuclear sinatra?
Stupid assertion:
Eat sinatra.
Hail Mary full of sinatra.
Serious reflection:
sinatra this, sinatra that.
sinatra do, sinatra don't.
sinatra come, sinatra go
There's no sinatra like show sinatra.
Historical question:
Is the poet who wrote this poem still alive?
Biblical fact:
Man does not live by sinatra alone.
In "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man," you've taken one of the most notable poems of our times and married it to the blight of racism. Your model is a poem written by Wallace Stevens, one of the great American modernists who was also a racist and whose indelible work many writers (including myself) feel conflicted about. To make matters more complex, you are a white man writing about an experience you have only observed vs. endured. Could you share a little bit about your choices behind this poem and how you work through nuance, contradiction, and the hesitancy that can accompany them?
You’re the first to nail that. A lot of my poems have secret passageways and trapdoors that chart unlikely escape routes. I had been re-reading a book of poetry by my friend, klipschutz (Kurt Lipschutz), which included his very funny “Thirteen Ways of Eating a Burrito.” At the same time, the news had exploded about Trayvon Martin, the young, unarmed black man in Florida shot and killed by a man who felt threatened by Martin’s looks and behavior. The first line that came to me was “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man.” I thought: “Okay, a little channeling of Wallace Stevens would be a healthy thing right about now.” The poem became an absurd retelling of Stevens’ original use of language and ideas with an attempt to reconcile the “eye of the beholder” with the specter of race and racism.
I’d also like to add that while I am, indeed, considered white, I didn’t always feel that way growing up. My family’s thick, black hair, dark, olive skin and imperfect English, as well as those of other Italians in our neighborhood, stood in stark contrast to our neighbors of German and Nordic descent. Race and prejudice in the fifties were as common as rabbit ears on a TV set. It wasn’t unusual to hear words like “black dago,” “dirty wop,” and “guinea” used as nasty invective or with reckless familiarity. The epithets had an isolating effect, particularly if you were very young and heard such distinctions being made between white kids and everyone else.
What we experienced was nothing compared to what some African American neighbors went through. It wasn’t just white against everyone else. Italians, my uncles included, would sometimes call each other “dago” as if they were talking about fish. But they were just as guilty of using the “N” word as the guy around the corner who flew a Confederate flag every Fourth of July. Some kids would repeat what their parents said, but others crossed the line looking for trouble. I was with my older brother and some cousins in the park when we saw a big white kid pounding on a small black kid. The black kid was someone we’d seen before, my age, about eight years old. My brother, who was 12, ran over and told the white kid to pick on someone his own size. He took a swing at my brother and my brother decked him with one punch. I never forgot it.
At first the tone of this collection feels predominantly playful in terms of subject matter and language, but by the time I finished reading it, I could see that it was also wistful and melancholy all along, addressing not only the silliness of celebrity but also its solitude and, by turn, your own. Why do you find humor as a valuable construct in your work? What tradition do you feel you are a part of in terms of this aesthetic?
It’s valuable in my poetry because it helps liberate and, in some ways, define the struggle I believe we all have with the absurdity of needless suffering. It’s not enough to stand for something and be angry with how the country is run or where the world is headed. To effect change you put that something, whatever it is, in play.
I think the tradition I’m part of demands I navigate this new golden age of satire with a pocket full of pyrite and no compass. The offensive nature of any satirical work (mine included) is implicit and inescapable. This is not a time for the timid or thin-skinned. I believe I’m just as sincere as anyone else in trying to determine why I’m somewhere rather than how I get anywhere.
There are a lot of borrowed forms in your book -- from Catholic prayer, to found dialogue, to structures imagined first by Ginsberg & Stevens. What do you like about working within an already set framework?
I absolutely love parody. It’s a difficult and challenging form that requires even more discipline and concentration than usual. It’s immensely satisfying when you stay true to the original and hear your own voice. The Catholic prayers came quickly and easily, particularly “The Actor’s Creed” and “The Halle Berry.” In the poem for Robin Williams I used his own words to address the loss I felt on the passing of my friend. Writing “Howl of Lon Chaney, Jr.” was both torture and bliss. I went into a zombie trance for months and loved it. A parody of Ginsberg’s most famous work is doomed to failure from the start if 1) you don’t have a convincing subject of your own to carry the poem; and 2) you’re unprepared to carry it through all the way. I felt fortunate. A twisted Hollywood culture had produced Lon Chaney, Jr. His life, in front of and away from the camera, was eerily compelling. The transformation of the poem itself became an apt metaphor for his heart-wrenching makeover as “The Wolfman.”
Who specifically has influenced your poems and how you approach them?
A lot of my poetry is inspired by an endless list of brilliant and peculiar characters from the classics to cartoons. One of the few positive things I took away from my seminary training was discernment, self-discipline and good study habits. I valued a diverse education and appreciated singular voices no matter how contrary or complex, no matter how silly or strange. Kurt Vonnegut, Buster Keaton, Bob Kaufman, Jelly Roll Morton, A.D. Winans, Dr. Seuss, Adrienne Rich, Scrooge McDuck, Pablo Neruda, the Ritz Brothers and hundreds more, all had a hand in twisting my work like a pretzel.
My personal holy trinity consists of Edward Field, Joseph Heller and Paul Krassner. Their sharp, contrasting styles have taught me to trust my instincts and bring a pie to a knife fight. In the workforce I paid attention to Ferlinghetti, Diane DiPrima and Lenny Bruce.
We labor in a field of tall egos. It does us good now and then to acknowledge our contemporaries and offer praise without favor. In the seventies I attended a reading by Richard Eberhart at the University of California at Davis. At a reception afterwards, Eberhart encouraged us to not only read the works of living poets but to “drop them a line.” He believed in sincere and unsolicited communication at a time when people walked to the curb to check their mail. Poets, he said, should inform other poets. It’s one way we learn who’s out there in the field with us.
What are you working on now?
I’m involved in a number of writing projects. One is a verse novel based on stories my father told me about growing up with wise guys in North Boston. Another is a verse memoir about the first 100 days of my abuse at the seminary. I’m also crafting, under my parody news syndicate, Yossarian Universal, a series of reports and dispatches emanating from an unknown source. The dark, Klingon days of Der Gropenführer are upon us and it’s going to take more than a few torches to illuminate the skulkers who prowl the shadows.
The upside-down optimism that Trump promotes is a threat not only to reality but to legitimate madness. Speak truth to power, yes, but also speak crazy to crazy with a straight face. Reclaim the narrative. When clergy abuse survivors, fearful of being re-traumatized, ask me how I’m still able to walk into a church today, I tell them I simply make the sign of the cross with one hand and hold my crotch with the other.
I like to remind myself that the vast literary landscape I wander through often bears more of a resemblance to the “Cheese Shop” sketch in Monty Python’s Flying Circus than it does to the grand ballroom scene in The Great Gatsby. Karl Shapiro, who had a wicked sense of humor, once told me that if you laid out all the poems in the world end-to-end, 
people would use them to walk on.
Paul Fericano will read his work at Bird and Beckett Books and Records on Sunday, November 12, at 2 pm, as part of Three On a Match, The New and Improved Reading Series.
