#tommy pico

[gennsoup]

carrying the past in oneself, like a word

Tommy Pico, Nature Poem

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

🏳️‍🌈 AUDIOBOOK REVIEW 🏳️‍🌈

IRL by Tommy Pico

QOTD: What’s the last book you read outside your comfort zone?

[instagram]

Review below cut

I’ve left this unrated as it always feels wrong to rate someone’s personal story and while this is poetry and not a memoir, it was definitely personal to the author.

This was a random poem I picked up to complete a readathon prompt that I didn’t think I had time to fill with a novel and I am SO glad I did.

I fell out of love with poetry about 10 years ago and I’ve not read much of it since. It doesn’t draw me in like it used to. But maybe I needed to be listening to it.

Listening to this reminded me of the slam poetry I used to watch on youtube in my teens. It made me feel things with each beat, each ebb and flow. There were parts that resonated with me and parts that definitely didn’t, but I think that’s often the case with work like this.

I highly recommend listening to Tommy Pico’s poetry if you’re looking to give poetry a go. It’s moving and it’s wonderfully performed.

[read-alert]

April is National Poetry Month! Here's some of my favorite collections! Full titles under the cut!

Feed by Tommy Pico

Black Movie by Danez Smith

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

The Twenty Ninth Year by Hala Alyan

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

Nature Poem by Tommy Pico

Femme in Public by Alok Vaid-Menon

IRL by Tommy Pico

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom

A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom

Homie by Danez Smith

Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

[spoke9]

from Junk

By Tommy Pico

Wherever we go, needs feed and I find it harder and harder to

believe benevolence is the thing Thousands of Yazidi girls

missing and plastic fills the ocean’s mouth and the cursive of

yr name still occupies the canopy of my throat Fuel, the under-

pinning What fires your gd engine Rigor, mortis Cold as

unmoving or unmoved The opposite of music Warm in the

cold universe Molten, forming A rock becoming magma

becoming lava becoming land Land, the trauma of lava Lava

the lamp of the ancestors and later a cheeky find in the Junk

shop and rising in our living room Livin groom Just bc nothing

cares doesn’t mean it lacks meaning What’s the point of

curiosity but a train rolling past the spot where the Donner

Party feasted n then go on a four hour Wikipedia downward

spiral I’m the closest thing to a mime parade I whisper, home

late tiptoeing down the creaky hallway tryin not to wake my

roommates Nice chicken parm, sluts, I say to my fingers at

lunch Dissociation is evacuating from the inside I just know

we’ll have a good time Junk: a relief map of yr traumas Dipping

yr whole arm into the bin of sunflower seeds I’m in my Shonda

Rhimes Year of Yes n so far it’s pretty freak Gave a beej 2 a

logger in town for a football game at his hostel (almost wrote

hostile) the old-fashioned way, as in I met him at a bar after

lingering eye contact No apps Told him I was writing this poem

Flush with success after only eating half the cheeseburger for

dinner For the first time in my life it wasn’t no burger or four

burgers Full on Rocky situation He said he was flattered every

time his gf’s gay friends grabbed his beer can Bacon-wrapped-

date-flavored Doritos The artifice of order Predictability,

measured time, present wrapping Order, Order, Pockets of

Order Or, Durham I dumped a boy from Raleigh today The

baton of Junk The dance whirls Whorls War Tortle Cut to mall

dressing room thousand outfits montage Ignorance as a tool to

revive the feeling of doing something new Junk has to be the

poem of our time Pointless accumulation Clinging to a million

denials Why do you need an assault rifle? What if radioactive

bears Buying in bulk Afraid of forgetting that night in 2007

when Chantal shouted jamiroquai is holding this party

together!!!! Junk is the garbage ppl keep Didn’t they tell you

I’m a meteorologist but for people What’s that called? Psychic?

Psychic side chick In maths, “arbitrary” is a thing w/o specific

value Quite the Junkery The world, all of its rock formations

and space missions and presidents and religious phobias and

fashions fossils All of it has always seemed so arbitrary to me,

bc to survive this long into an occupation feels sometimes so

arbitrary to be And then sometimes so divine Who else could

survive but my line It’s true, your Junk won’t save you from a

tsunami, but I’m descended from a group whose culture history

language gods cosmology calendar stories government gait was

capital “O” Obliterated I’ll stop writing this when it stops hap-

pening So when I “get” anything it’s hard to let go Resisting

death for generations, I want to make the opposite of death No

excuse for a vanilla bean tapioca ball attitude Ever bought a

McFlurry n shouted yr dead inside but yew were pointing a

finger at yrself and, horrified, yew screamed Ran home but half-

way home yew forgot what yew were doing n bought a pair of

sneaker boots at DSW or just me? I’m building the archive of a

life that shouldn’t exist Wristband from that gay club in

Cartagena where we danced w/ the self-proclaimed Perez

Hilton of Colombia Every bar frankly should have tostones

smellin up the grill Is a poem abt Junk itself merely an accum-

ulation of doomsday and birth certificates If part of Junk is

letting go, partly Junk is letting go of you Junk finds a new boo

•

“Control” by Janet Jackson is one of the greatest songs in the

nation Warm hearts sparkle in the colonial afternoon Control

is a reaction to something smacking that cracks the future

w/ no precedent We call this a paradigm shift — say we were

totally blindsided Janet wants to take control from her parents

From the loss of a first love Control of the narrative Janet

wants to Black Cat in boxy military garb Janet wants to show

you her midriff and introduce J. Lo to the general public in

a few albums Shock is a kind of collision A booming confusion

The shudder and the shot are almost indistinguishable Shock

has its electric correlate, but is also itself by what surrounds

the event: a quiet dinner party vs sweaty racing thoughts And

what do you make of it My friend said he found out his crush

graduated college in 2014 n hates himself And I’m like wait

til yr my age thinkin, I totally still look like I’m in my 20s Then

it turns out the dude you were makin out with was born the

year Janet, the album, came out What the literal fudge An hour

ago you were singing “That’s the Way Love Goes” at karaoke

In my defense, taller dudes always look older How to negotiate

control and the lack of control When yr slap hand gets itchy OK

whenever anybody dumps you just think of them as a gif of a

white dude wilding out to Wu Tang in a cardigan then suddenly

falling into the Grand Canyon — Dating is all the way dumb I

don’t know what, if any of this, will reach yr peepers but I want

to ask you this (and I am guilty of making ppl wade thru some

bullshit b4 getting to my point): What do you turn to when

breath dashes from yr body like it’s on the lamb? Cindy Craw-

ford says lighting is everything Take a selfie from the sun-

blown window Even supermodels say “lighting” It’s comforting!

But there’s also value in exposing yr engine #BadSelfie Archaic

but also so fresh: self-expression Trust is a thing that guides

you thru a feed The voice like a handshake I’m in front of you

There is paper and a trade-off This is ancient, like pixel drift

What’s under the hood of irritation We call complication a knot

A knotted life that doesn’t get to be undone Who here has a

clear, linear rope? Denial! You have to love yr knots You have

to shout them out Curate if need be Janet turns her knots into

songs Sonic beauty (tho fuck beauty) Knot is the response A

manager is like a politician Not the minutiae but the orchest-

ration The dark forest It’s hard not to inhale The cave is where

to turn when you’ve no other recourse This isn’t a discussion

This isn’t a mandate (lol man date) This isn’t an answer This is

a lineage: Lascaux, Keith Haring, Rihanna How do you draw

breath? In and down Heel to crown Janet says I’m in control

and ends Don’t make me lose it As if she knows what’s to come.

The battle of control is in learning to make, and giving it up

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

“Wherever we go, needs feed and I find it harder and harder to / believe benevolence is the thing Thousands of Yazidi girls // missing and plastic fills the ocean’s mouth and the cursive of / yr name still occupies the canopy of my throat Fuel, the under- // pinning What fires your gd engine Rigor, mortis Cold as / unmoving or unmoved The opposite of music Warm in the // cold universe Molten, forming A rock becoming magma / becoming lava becoming land Land, the trauma of lava Lava // the lamp of the ancestors and later a cheeky find in the Junk / shop”

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[4setsofcorsets]

Fuck yeah tommy pico. If you don’t read him you’re a coward

Nature Poem

Tommy Pico

Nature Poem follows Teebs--a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet--who can't bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He'd slap a tree across the face. He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he's adamant--bratty, even--about his distaste for the word "natural," over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the "natural world," he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.

(Affiliate link above)

[milf-stevebuscemi]

get in, loser- we're touring landscapes of the interior

Tommy Pico, Nature Poem

[radiantcircle-if]

Profile: César

One of the highest ranking earth sorcerers in the world, César is seen as the unofficial heir of the current Night Luminary—and he takes the role seriously. As your brother’s best friend, he has been a permanent fixture in your life as far as you remember—another persistent reminder of the magic that has remained inaccessible to you and the community that left you behind. He’s at least an attractive reminder, even if it’s unfortunate that his rare smirk proves that he knows it.

Family name: Pico

Circle: Night Circle

Magic: earth

Birth month: November

Birth place: Tijuana, MX (territory of the Kumeyaay Nation)

Education: bachelor's

Occupation: Archumbricar

Favorite place: desert

Favorite drink: beer

Favorite color: he doesn't have one, but he'll say it's brown if asked

Most prized possession: book collection

Handwriting: somewhat unserious looking, simple print

Always in bag: a book and business related paraphernalia

Family: he has a good relationship with his younger brother Rafa, and his father Alejandro and mother Tarhíata are proud of his influence in the Circle; on the other hand, he doesn't have much love for his uncle Tangaxoan or his cousin Eréndira, but he'd still kill for them

Friends: Arseau is his best friend, and he considers his younger brother Rafa a close friend and his guard Damianos an ally; he's not the type to let others know him well enough to call him a friend, though many might claim the title anyway, and you know he has never and will never consider you a friend

Appearance: amber eyes, dark brown hair in a short buzz cut, never clean-shaven, brown skin with a warm undertone, very tall (somewhere above 193cm/6'4"), muscular, lots of tattoos, wears earrings, usually dresses in a bespoke suit, favorite accessory is a simple necklace

Romance: solo-route (with a possible rivalry with his brother), back-and-forth (borderline love/hate), (possible first love), one of the slower burns

You find César's brooding demeanor and deep sense of duty to be intimidating, but you knew him before he became an Archumbricar—when he was just your brother's best friend who made you laugh when you were sad. Those who look up to him call him a hero, the master of his own destiny. His cards in the Major Arcana are the Emperor and the World.

〉 Sections: Profiles, Editorials, Articles, Ask Me, Answers, Quotes

[niibaataa]

Some Indigenous Poets to Read

Disclaimer: Some of these poems deal with pregnancy, colonialism, substance abuse, murder, death, and historical wrongs. Exercise caution.

Tacey M. Atsitty [Diné] : Anasazi, Lady Birds' Evening Meetings, Things to Do With a Monster.

Billy-Ray Belcourt [Cree] : NDN Homopoetics, If Our Bodies Could Rust, We Would Be Falling Apart, Love is a Moontime Teaching.

CooXooEii Black [Arapaho] : On Mindfulness, Some Notes on Vision, With Scraps We Made Sacred Food.

Trevino L. Brings Plenty [Lakota] : Unpack Poetic, Will, Massacre Song Foundation.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski [Apache] : Nobaude, murder on the gowanus, What To Say Upon Being Asked To Be Friends.

Gladys Cardiff [Cherokee] : Combing, Prayer to Fix The Affections, To Frighten a Storm.

Freddy Chicangana [Yanacuna] : Of Rivers, Footprints, We Still Have Life on This Earth.

Laura Da' [Shawnee] : Bead Workers, The Meadow Views: Sword and Symbolic History, A Mighty Pulverizing Machine.

Natalie Diaz [Mojave] : It Was The Animals, My Brother My Wound, The Facts of Art.

Heid E. Erdrich [Anishinaabe] : De'an, Elemental Conception, Ghost Prisoner.

Jennifer Elise Foerster [Mvskoke] : From "Coosa", Leaving Tulsa, The Other Side.

Eric Gansworth [Onondaga] : Bee, Eel, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function.

Joy Harjo [Muscogee] : An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, A Map to The Next World.

Gordon Henry Jr. [Anishinaabe] : How Soon, On the Verve of Verbs, It Was Snowing on The Monuments.

Sy Hoahwah [Comanche/Arapaho] : Colors of The Comanche Nation Flag, Definitive Bright Morning, Typhoni.

LeAnne Howe [Choctaw] : A Duck's Tune, 1918, Iva Describes Her Deathbed.

Hugo Jamioy [Kamentsá] : PUNCTUAL, If You Don't Eat Anything, The Story of My People.

Layli Long Soldier [Lakota] : 38, WHEREAS, Obligations 2.

Janet McAdams [Muscogee] : Flood, The Hands of The Taino, Hunters, Gatherers.

Brandy Nālani McDougall [Kānaka Maoli] : He Mele Aloha no ka Niu, On Finding my Father's First Essay, The Island on Which I Love You.

dg nanouk okpik [Inupiaq-Inuit] : Cell Block on Chena River, Found, If Oil Is Drilled In Bristol Bay.

Simon J. Ortiz [Acoma Pueblo] : Becoming Human, Blind Curse, Busted Boy.

Sara Marie Ortiz [Acoma Pueblo] : Iyáani (Spirit, Breath, Life), Language (part of a compilation), Rush.

Alan Pelaez Lopez [Zapotec] : the afterlife of illegality, A Daily Prayer, Zapotec Crossers.

Tommy Pico [Kumeyaay] : From "Feed", from Junk, You Can't be an NDN Person in Today's World.

Craig Santos Perez [Chamorro] : (First Trimester), from Lisiensan Ga'lago, from "understory".

Cedar Sigo [Suquamish] : Cold Valley, Expensive Magic, Secrets of The Inner Mind.

M. L. Smoker [Assiniboine/Sioux] : Crosscurrent, Heart Butte, Montana, Another Attempt at Rescue.

Laura Tohe [Diné] : For Kathryn, Female Rain, Returning.

Gwen Nell Westerman [Cherokee/Dakota] : Dakota Homecoming, Covalent Bonds, Undivided Interest.

Karenne Wood [Monacan] : Apologies, Abracadabra, an Abecedarian, Chief Totopotamoi, 1654.

Lightning Round! Writers with poetry available on their sites:

Shonda Buchanan [Coharie, Cherokee, Choctaw].

Leonel Lienlaf [Mapuche].

Asani Charles [Choctaw/Chickasaw].

[gennsoup]

Hope is a charred skeleton of a house visible from a road that snakes through the valley of memory where fig trees burst from the ground like throaty laughter.

Tommy Pico, Nature Poem

[profwonderbearthementalista]

Mentalist Trivia - Crafting the Characters

Patrick Jane

Simon came up with the idea of Jane having a couch as it served two purposes. 1) It reminded him of a therapist who can read and analyse people, just like Jane and 2) He could get to sit down at all times! The couch was meant to be 'slick yet messy', just like Jane.

Jane's suits were meant to always look wrinkled and crumpled as Jane stored them all in a drawer and not hung-up in a wardrobe. He also never ironed his suits.

CBS originally wanted Jane to drive a Taurus but Simon wanted a different car. He visited a movie lot with many cars used in films and chose the 1970s Citroen DS Pallas. The original colour of the Citroen was red but they resprayed it blue to match Jane's aesthetic.

Jane was written to wear sandals all the time but Simon suggested the fan favourite old brown shoes.

Jane is a working class Irish last name.

Teresa Lisbon

Lisbon was originally meant to be half Irish and half Portuguese.

Lisbon was meant to have 4 brothers.

The Lisbon brothers were originally meant to all be policemen or fireman (like Teresa and her dad respectively) with Tommy being the black sheep.

Jane and Lisbon were meant to have more of an enemies-to-friends dynamic but this changed thanks to the friendship between Simon and Robin.

Kimball Cho

Cho's millitary background became a pivotal part of his character after discussions with Tim and the producers.

Cho was meant to be a family man but Tim was given the freedom, to change Cho's background and character. In fact, all the actors were allowed to flesh out their characters by coming up with their backstories.

Wayne Rigsby

Rigsby was meant to be the 'frat jock guy' and 'popular with the ladies' but his character was changed thanks to Owain's personality and skill set.

The characters of Jane and Rigsby are the ones to be shown eating more than a bite of food. Owain remarked years later in a 2019 interview for Emergence that he put on weight from all the eating as tv food = real pounds so he had to start working out more.

The CBI Building

The CBI headquarters were made to look like an old Sacramento shipping company which is why there are faded adverts and slogans outside Jane's attic. The CBI building facade is actually the Pico House in downtown LA.

Red John

Red John's smiley face calling card is based on a real serial killer nicknamed the Smiley-Faced Killer who left smiley faces by the bodies.

Originally, Red John's arm was meant to be shown in scenes and there is a deleted scene in 1x01 where RJ has a tv screen and a cup of tea watching Jane.

Facts credited to TheMentalistHQ on Twitter and various interviews.

Tagging under the cut:

@lightningzombie, @feministjane, @backgroundagent3, @adder24, @magicandmaybe

@margaretintherain, @wildwildtarget, @kathnaris, @bookboundromance, @a-carnie-and-a-cop

@psychicpinenut, @kaimelypowaaah, @stxrdust-widow, @lonely-zombiiiiieeeee, @emilie786

@louisaland, @autumn0689, @michi384, @lisbonloaferrs, @gracevanpelt

@lizzybennets, @smoakmonster, @thiscoldheart, @lovejisbon, @sylviedonnas

@lovelydrusilla, @middlingmay, @whereyourtreasureis, @reeselisbon, @sunnymentalist

@someonesaidcake, @saturnzoned, @lisbonsversion, @queeenpersephone, @boodunnit

@thatbitchmabel, @cull3nblaze, @thetumblinggnome, @sylviedonnas, @lisbonsteresa

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hi! I really enjoy your Patreon, especially your book recs and reviews. I also have seen you post about food and cooking a bit - I was wondering if you had any recommendations for books about cooking/food? Not necessarily cookbooks or but books on the subject of cooking and food culture? Thank you kindly :)

truly this might not be exactly what you're after, but Tommy Pico's book-length poem Feed is one of my very favorite pieces of food-related writing and really gave me a great kick when I was learning how to cook myself.

Jessica B. Harris' book High on the Hog is also a really cool history of African American foodways shaping American culture, David Sax's book The Tastemakers is something like a decade old now but offers really interesting insights into food trends and marketing, and of course Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart ties her grief for her mom really heavily to her interest in learning to cook "authentic" Korean food. and I didn't enjoy it quite as much as her previous work, but I'd be remiss not to mention Aimee Nezhukumatathil's Bite by Bite.

[librarycards]

hello everyone, and welcome to my Q3 book recs of 2024! this has been a *huge* book summer for me, not least because i've gotten to visit and chat with so many independent booksellers. after all, my debut novel, Failure to Comply (GR) (Storygraph), is now available for order, and I've been running around doing events and other publicity things to celebrate! While I'm obviously not going to recommend my own book in my top 9, if you enjoy experimental speculative fiction, Mad/trans cyborgs, and evil dykes + body horror, consider checking it out.

anyway! here are my favorites from this summer. it was, as always, a tough choice, but i hope you find something you like!

Gayl Jones, White Rat

Lee Mandelo, The Woods All Black

Michael Faber, Under the Skin

Randa Jarrar, A Map of Home

Jeanne Thornton, Summer Fun

Evan Dahm, The Last Delivery

Tommy Pico, IRL

Bhanu Kapil, The Vertical Integration of Strangers

Camila Sosa Vilada, tr. Kit Maude, Bad Girls

thanks, as always, for reading + enjoying these! i enjoy sharing them with you. if you want to see more regular recs from me for a variety of media, consider subscribing to my newsletter – I share short poetry/prose; audio; books; and more every month.

tagging people below, but no pressure to do it if you're tagged, and those not tagged are enthusiastically encouraged to do this + tag me in it (whether we're mutuals or not!!)

@campgender @capricornpropaganda @fluoresensitive @closet-keys @fatehbaz @lunarianbeams

@felgueirosa @materialisnt @osmanthusoolong @punkkwix @yesthattoo

@snoopyisbisexual @stephen-deadalus @metapianycist @podcastlesbian @metamatar

@lesbianlizzybennet @flameswallower @slowtides @sawasawako @growtiredofpublicvulnerability

@abstractlesbian @grimesapologist @aldieb @bioethicists @heavenlyyshecomes @trans-axolotl & anyone else who wants to!!

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

💜 Queer Books for National Poetry Month

🦇 As a poetry writer, reader, and performer, National Poetry Month has a special place in my heart. It's a reminder that many thoughts and emotions are universal; that you're not alone. To acknowledge exactly that, here are a few queer books for National Poetry Month for your TBR!

✨ Broken Halves of a Milky Sun - Aaiún Nin ✨ Throat - Ellen van Neerven ✨ No Credit River - Zoe Whittall ✨ Tranz - Spencer Williams ✨ Return of the Chinese Femme - Dorothy Chan ✨ Couplets - Maggie Millner ✨ Blood - Tyler Pennock ✨ A "Working Life" - Eileen Myles ✨ Pansy - Andrea Gibson

✨ Why I Was Late - Charlie Petch ✨ Nature Poem - Tommy Pico ✨ Halal If You Hear Me - Various ✨ Pier Queen - Emanuel Xavier ✨ Crime Against Nature - Minnie Bruce Pratt ✨ Queer Poets of Color - Various ✨ Space Struck - Paige Lewis ✨ Calamities - Renee Gladman ✨ Love and Other Poems - Alex Dimitrov

✨ Milk Teeth - Rae White ✨ Some Integrity - Padraig Regan ✨ Biography of Red - Anne Carson ✨ I Am the Most Dangerous Thing - Candace Williams ✨ Because You Were Mine - Brionne Janae ✨ Homeland of My Body - Richard Blanco ✨ Gay Poems for Red States - Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. ✨ Wound from the Mouth of a Wound - Torrin A. Greathouse ✨ Punks - John Keene

✨ On a Grey Thread - Elsa Gidlow ✨ Ode to My First Car - Robin Gow ✨ Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency - Chen Chen ✨ My Dear Comrades - Sunu P. Chandy ✨ The Wild Hunt Divinations - Trevor Ketner ✨ Queer - Andrea G. Hardeman ✨ A Film in Which I Play Everyone - Mary Jo Bang ✨ Beautiful Malady - Ennis Rook Bashe ✨ Alive at the End of the World - Saeed Jones

✨ Hard Drive - Paul Stephenson ✨ Then the War - Carl Phillips ✨ Negative Money - Lillian-Yvonne Bertram ✨ Freedom House - KB Brookins ✨ The Magic Border - Arlo Parks ✨ A Brilliant Loss - Eloise Klein Healy ✨ Butcher - Natasha T. Miller ✨ Out Here - Various ✨ Beast at Every Threshold - Natalie Wee

✨ Good Grief, the Ground - Margaret Ray ✨ Ephemera - Sierra DeMulder ✨ More Sure - A. Light Zachary ✨ Pillow Thoughts - Courtney Peppernell ✨ Toska - A. Pleskova ✨ Disintegrate/Dissociate - Arielle Twist ✨ Trace Evidence - Charif Shanahan ✨ God Themselves - Jae Nichelle ✨ To the Boy Who Was Night - Rigoberto González