Patricia Lockwood
| Patricia Lockwood | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Patricia Lockwood April 27, 1982 Fort Wayne, Indiana U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Notable works | Balloon Pop Outlaw Black, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals |
Patricia Lockwood (born April 27, 1982) is an American poet. She has published two poetry collections and is notable for her trans-genre poetics, including her series of Twitter "sexts" and the prose poem "Rape Joke."
Life and work
Lockwood was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[1] Her father, a Naval seaman serving on a nuclear submarine in the Cold War, had a conversion experience after watching The Exorcist and became a married Catholic priest.[2] Lockwood grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and Cincinnati, Ohio, attending parochial schools there, but never went to college.
"She married at 21, has scarcely ever held a job and, by her telling, seems to have spent her adult life in a Proustian attitude, writing for hours each day from her 'desk-bed,'" according to a profile in The New York Times Magazine.[3] During that period, from 2004 to 2011, Lockwood's poems began to appear widely in magazines including The New Yorker, Poetry, and the London Review of Books.
In 2011, Lockwood joined Twitter.
In 2012, small press Octopus Books published Lockwood's first poetry collection, Balloon Pop Outlaw Black. The Chicago Tribune praised the work for its "savage intelligence."[4] The collection was included in end-of-year lists by The New Yorker[5] and Pitchfork[6] and became one of the best-selling indie poetry titles of all time.[3] Its iconic cover features original artwork by cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt.[7]
In 2014, Penguin Books published Lockwood's second poetry collection, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals. The book's cover features more original artwork by Hanawalt. The New York Times critic Dwight Garner praised the book for its "indelible, dreamlike details." Stephen Burt, writing for The New York Times Book Review, lauded it as "at once angrier, and more fun, more attuned to our time and more bizarre, than most poetry can ever get."[8] The Stranger dubbed Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals "the first true book of poetry to be published in the 21st century."[9] Rolling Stone included Lockwood and the book on its 2014 Hot List, and the New York Times named it a Notable Book.[10]
Riverhead Books has announced it will publish a memoir by Lockwood in 2017.
Lockwood is notable for her Twitter comedy and poetics, including the "sext" form she originated,[11] her association with the Weird Twitter movement,[12] and her devout following. The Atlantic Wire put Lockwood on its list of "The Best Tweets of All Time"; she was the only author included twice.[13] On Jan. 9, 2014, to honor the anniversary of Lockwood's popular tweet ".@parisreview So is paris any good or not," The Paris Review finally issued a review of Paris.[14]
'Rape Joke'
In July 2013, current events website The Awl published Lockwood's prose poem "Rape Joke," which quickly became a viral sensation.[15] The Guardian wrote that the poem "casually reawakened a generation's interest in poetry."[16] The Poetry Foundation declared the poem "world famous."[17] The poem was selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2014 and won a Pushcart Prize.
Selected works
- 2012: Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books)
- 2014: Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Penguin Books)
References
- ↑ "Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Poets, Penguin)". 2013. Amazon. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
- ↑ "Sexts, Surrealism and Twitter Poetry", Hazlitt
- 1 2 "The Smutty-Metaphor Queen of Lawrence, Kansas", The New York Times Magazine
- ↑ "Poetry in Neglect", Chicago Tribune
- ↑ "Best Books of 2012 P.S.", The New Yorker
- ↑ "Guest List: Best of 2012", Pitchfork
- ↑ "Let's Help Patricia Lockwood Get a Tramp Stamp, Shall We?", The Poetry Foundation
- ↑ "Patricia Lockwood's 'Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals'", The New York Times
- ↑ "The Most Modern Poet", The Stranger
- ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2014", The New York Times
- ↑ "Patricia Lockwood's Sext Poems Will Make You LOL", Huffington Post
- ↑ "Weird Twitter: The Oral History", BuzzFeed
- ↑ "The Best Tweets of All Time". The Atlantic Wire
- ↑ "At Last, We Answer Patricia Lockwood's Excellent Tweet", The Paris Review
- ↑ "Rape Joke", The Awl
- ↑ "Rape Joke: What Is Patricia Lockwood's Poem Really Saying?", The Guardian
- ↑ "Patricia Lockwood 'Rape Joke' Poem Is World Famous", The Poetry Foundation
External links
- "Rape Joke" poem by Lockwood at The Awl
- "Government Spending" poem by Lockwood at The Poetry Foundation
- "The Hypno-Domme Speaks, and Speaks and Speaks poem by Lockwood at The Poetry Foundation
- "The Arch" poem by Lockwood at The Poetry Foundation
- "The Church of the Open Crayon Box" poem by Lockwood at The Poetry Foundation
- "List of Cross-Dressing Soldiers" poem by Lockwood at Poetry Daily
- "Love Poem Like We Used to Write It" poem by Lockwood at The New Yorker
- "What Is the Zoo For What" poem by Lockwood at The New Yorker
- "Factories Are Everywhere in Poetry Right Now" poem by Lockwood at Colorado Review
- "When the World Was Ten Years Old He Fell Deep in Love with Egypt" poem by Lockwood at The Dinner Party Download
- "Old Green America Says I Grew a Law Last Night" poem by Lockwood at Poetry Society of America
- "Don Draper, Poetry Sex Man" poem by Lockwood at Adult Swim