Michael C.
TURNEY TALKS to Micahel C. co-curator and co-creator of Lamp Lit (lamplit.net), host of Poems and Whiskey (a popular podcast), and author of Yellow Rose Efficy (2024).
Michael C. is a co-curator and co-creator of Lamp Lit (lamplit.net) and lives in Texas. Their affair with writing has been wildly inappropriate and deeply embarrassing for all involved. You can witness this in, Yellow Rose Effigy, released by Bottlecap Press (2024). They also really like pistachios. You can find them through here, https://linktr.ee/poemsandwhiskeypod
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Turney: You say you started your podcast because poetry is connection. I agree with this and it’s why I started my reading series Poetry (in Brief). What has surprised you most after concluding four wonderful seasons as a podcast host?
Michael C.: Right out the gate, huh? Lol.
How much I enjoy and need it, I think, surprises me the most and continually at that! (And that people are listening ??? To me?????) Each time I talk to someone, it’s all brand new again. I love having these conversations and getting to know people, learning new things.
And the navigation of time required for my plans…that’s a work in progress along with the rest of the project lol.
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Turney: Lol - yes right in! What has surprised you least?
Michael C.: The technical requirements. I knew that was gonna bite my ass lol.
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Turney: Dream guest? (You can’t say Kurt Vonnegut.)
Michael C.: LOL. I laughed for several minutes at that caveat.
Misha Collins and Dr. Chuck Tingle are at the top of my list.
P & W exists, in part, because of Misha.
There was this wonderful charity scavenger hunt event he started called GISH, where teams raised money by pledges and won prizes by doing amazing and ridiculous things. The joy in it! The force for good in it! The play!
I participated in it the final year and the experience forced me back into creating things on purpose and with more curiosity. It helped me grow.
And Chuck Tingle because of the joy and love in everything he makes. I’d love to get into his motivations and thoughts. His erotica and his fiction are brimming with care and intent.
I think I want to know how to do those things too. Maybe not a massive charity event or have a repertoire of beautiful absurdist erotica but my own version.
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Turney: Absurdist erotica…I’m intrigued. Now, what do you think is the future for/of poetry?
Michael C.: The future of poetry is whatever we want it to be. Does that seem like a cop out answer? I mean it, though. We are making poetry now. Now the generally accepted popular poetry will remain as cooperate as always, but the art of it will keep moving. We get to make it.
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Turney: I like this phrase you said “the art of it.” So, why is art imperative?
Michael C.: Art is everything. It is as much a part of us as anything else. We are not human, without art.
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Turney: I agree. I know many many non-artist non-humans. Anyway, what is your favorite whiskey cocktail?
Michael C.: I’m rather partial to a whiskey sour, it must be said.
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Turney: I love a whiskey sour also, what an excellent source of protein! Very healthy. What is the most you have ever paid for a cocktail and what was the circumstance?
Michael C.: That’s private lol and where else but the Gay Strip?
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Turney: Is there one Gay Strip or many a Gay Strip? Mine is Raffles in Singapore. Worth it. Taking a left turn: True or False - the best gin cocktail is a Last Word.
Michael C.: I haven’t explored gin like I should. I got into this butterfly pea flower gin that turned purple with acid for a minute. Empress, I think. But I haven’ t tried a Last Word…yet. I’ll report back when I do!
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Turney: What?! How you gonna not have tried a Last Word?! Yes, I do Empress with sparkling sometimes - squeeze of lemon. Speaking of simple perfections, do you have succulents in your home?
Michael C.: No, no inside plants have ever survived this house lol.
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Turney: I struggle to keep succulents alive myself but have an embarrassing number. Share a poem with us!
Michael C.: Mine or someone else’s? I err’d on the side of both. First someone else’s words, then something I wrote. At your wise discretion.
Turney: I am neither wise nor have even an ounce of discretion…
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INTERIOR: ALL THE LERVES SHAKE OFF THEIR LIGHT
Carl Phillips from Silverchest
It was then we found ourselves too many fields away from
where we'd meant to be, with regard to desire, to get there
ever, even if – though this was not the case – we'd been
told the way. Sure, we'd developed a patience, perhaps
even a taste for being lost, but we were plain exhausted: not
in our bodies, which had forgotten nothing of what they'd
known of heat, or of what to do with it – wasn't it this that
had rescued us, mostly, from many worse persuasions, as we
passed the time – but if not in our bodies, then where, where
else exhausted? Come weather, come whatever-we 've-sworn,
we leave our tracks in the dirt where of course we have to,
say the ghosts in the walls, slurring their usual handful of notes
remembered of the song that, together, each touch, each bruise
equals. Then they fade like smoke, or a bit like regret. Who
cares, anymore, about ghosts? Our ambitions were very high;
on occasion, we fell from them – swiftly, without surprise,
and very far. Never though, never would we have called that
failure, no – not then, and not now either. For here we are.
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Michael’s Top 10 Zepp Tracks +1 /Oh, just a sec, let me switch it on, okay there we go, push play
Like the wind
I want to keep this simple but
your hand in mine
no distance can’t make it small
there’s a feeling I get when I look to the west
that I don’t know how to hold on
so far to go, changes fill my time
my head’s caught a fire, like breath in a reed,
what’s to stop us, pretty baby but what is and what should never be?
love lights lean-tos of my chest, now
in the middle of the air
offerings are burned so gods can see
I could never hide
to be seen is to be changed and
walking side by side
if deserving is just virtue of vision
in the darkness
ask yourself, do you love the candle, or the light?
in the light you will find the road
but everything warps in the heat and
like a star that can’t wait for the night
I worry that love’s no different than theft
The Zepp Tracks: The Rain Song, Thank You, Stairway to Heaven, Ten Years Gone, What is and What Should Never Be, In My Time of Dying, I Can’t Quit You Baby, No Quarter, In the Light, In the Evening + Fool in the Rain
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Wanna hear more from Michael and Rachel? Tune in to Poems and Whiskey in early 2027. ;)
