Andrea Panzeca 

Wanting PPL to SeE

—after IRL by Tommy Pico

Ofc my Shonda Rhimes

year of yes would be

covid. I saw Little

Women in the theatre

7 times The only one

in the audience the day

of the shut down.

I was obsessed w/ Timmy

Chalamet Harry Styles

James Dean Talking

Heads n an act-

ual coupla

friends I’ll always

be obsessed w/ who

agreed we were all

going out more

before

like a part of us

somehow

knew. At least

one liked me like

liked me liked me

when I thot that all

but impossible

She n the others gave

me lap dances our

last nite of the

residency

so at least I kno

they value me

as a person. The

person who got

me thru early

quarantine

reading a few pgs

of Nature Poem

every nite was Tommy

Pico. I already had

the audio book

of IRL n read a ppr

copy two yrs

before Half in the

commons at

FAWC b/w wksps

in my longest most

retrograde

visit to Ptown. Weird

jealousy at a rich

family eating lobster

rolls together

before the ferry You’ll be

in the carriage house

this year

set the whole tone

tho a bartender told

me I look a little like

that actress

Christina Ricci

n a guy I met the yr

before wanted to

get drinks n like

a fool I blew him

off n now he lives

in Minnesota.

I started reading

IRL on a bench outside

but it’s hotter

than ever depleted

my underwear supply

in days aired them out

b/w re-

wears finally got

to wash em when

I checked in

upstairs

a few hrs later but un-

til then I read

in the commons

Eileen Myles

walked in I didn’t

say Thanks

for the adv copy of

Afterglow you gave

me last yr in front

of everybody

wrapped in a

brown ppr bag

Oh you left this

somewhere

I’m a dummy Huh?

I didn’t lose any—

oh—No gratitude

no gracious re-

minder of the prev-

iousness just

silence.

They pry just

got into town a lil

harried not ex-

pecting to interact

for a while

n I take the lack

of recognition

personally It affects

me the rest

of the trip that’d

already been af-

fected by the

familyeating

lobsterrolls. Did

I read the Pangaea

quote from IRL

to the crowd? Was Jane

Mead in the audience

her last year

a living

poet? On one of

the planes home

I read the rest of IRL

spilled some

beer on it

the library’s

copy felt right

or okay

in spirit w/ the text

the scroll To hinge

or roll my tray table

asked

the girl next to me

if I could set it

my beer on hers

she said yes I

was already grate-

ful to her and her bf

for choosing me

to sit next to pre-

venting some football

coach-type from landing

there asking So what

do you do

tho this never happens

to me I don’t give

off that friendly talk-

my-ear-off vibe tho I do

like to flash

my book cover

a little for ppl

to see

what I’m reading

in case they’re

curious. Grate-

ful too the relief I felt

to remember I’d be

home soon

in New Orleans no longer

surrounded by the

unrelenting whiteness

of Ptown. I didn’t climb

its white supremacy

monument

the pilgrim one

cause I’m scared

of heights n cause

fuck that mother-

of-all-I-survey bs.

The bf’s reading but I

can’t see what Wait

when in IRL is

the Pangaea part

#tbt even geography’s

abt moving on

Maybe in the second

half waiting

for me to get to

on the way home

reading my soiled

copy I hoped  

someone

would see.

 ____

Statement of Homage

This poem is both for and after IRL (or neither? I’m not sure). It’s quite literally about how I read the book in two sittings, a feat pretty unusual for me, a slow reader. IRL, and Tommy Pico’s work in general, came into my life in a rough spot, during which many difficult personal changes were underway. Things I could usually count on for solace weren’t helping. But reading the work of Tommy Pico was one, maybe the one, bright spot of that time in my life. Not only because the work pulsed with energy, hopscotching between hilarious and tragic, conversational and lyrical, Sontag and Sonic the Hedgehog. Pico’s work was proof that no, workshop peer, I’m not going to “improve” my poem by removing that Janet Jackson reference. His work seems improvisational, almost artless—pure thinking on the page, without revision—though in reality, I can only guess how much work Pico put into to IRL and all his work (four books in four years!) to make it appear that way. I wrote my piece in humble homage to the work that so sustained me in a hard time and gave me a model of what mine could be.

Tommy Pico

(Bio from his website)

Tommy “Teebs” Pico is a poet, podcaster, and tv writer. He is author of the books IRL, Nature Poem, Junk, Feed, and myriad keen tweets including “sittin on the cock of the gay.” Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now splits his time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. He co-curates the reading series Poets with Attitude, co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot and Scream, Queen! is poetry editor at Catapult Magazine, writes on the FX show Reservation Dogs, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub.

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