Danniel Schoonebeek is the author of American Barricade (YesYes Books, 2014) and the forthcoming collection of poems Trébuchet, which was a 2015 National Poetry Series selection and will be published by University of Georgia Press in 2016. The recipient of a 2015 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from Poetry Foundation, recent work appears in The New Yorker, Fence, Tin House, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He also hosts the Hatchet Job poetry series in Brooklyn and has been editor of the PEN Poetry Series since 2012.
Excerpt: "TRÉBUCHET" by Danniel Schoonebeek
These poems were written to land you on a government watch list.
And published at $14.95 paperback (hardcover edition
unreleased) by an impostor of Faber & Faber of 320 South Jackson Street, Athens
inside a warehouse formerly occupied by six pinkerton deserters
in this year of our lord 2016 the year of the so-called “accident.”
Or maybe to throw a brick through the wall of the White House
and no note attached is their business.
These poems come pepper-sprayed for your health with dirty words
particularly on pages 3, 6, 23, 40, and 83
and were written by D. Schoonebeek
an oftentimes troubled and defamatory young girl
living among the worst generation of profiteers in balaclavas
and who keeps herself violent through love.
Or maybe to start a riot inside the insurgence
inside of the skirmish is their business.
Their weight is 9.356 ounces,
they will travel 732 feet in 12 seconds when fired from a trébuchet,
their burning temperature is Fahrenheit 451,
and they were printed in the United States by
McNaughton & Gunn of Saline, Michigan.
Or maybe to smuggle the anthem back inside the chrysanthemum is their business.
On the day of its publication this book
would buy you 3 loaves rye peasant bread,
8 white bootlaces,
1 liter vodka filtered through cheesecloth,
5 lbs. goose feathers,
0 theater tickets,
6 single rides on Manhattan-bound bus lines,
3 boxes baby diapers,
11 yards steel chain,
0 paintings, 3 cartons eggs,
or a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
What else do you expect
for $22.95?
No really: what do you demand of your money.
What is the function of police?
Their International Standard Book Number
is nine seven eight
zero eight two zero three
four nine nine two three
and this is the same number of school shootings since 1986.
This is the same number of school shootings since you were first broke.
This is the same number of school shootings since you were last fucked.
This is the same number of school shootings since you lost the use of your left.
This is the same number of school shootings since the so-called accident.
This is the same number of school shootings since Flight 370 vanished.
This is the same number of school shootings since god said I defect.
This is the same number of school shootings since you laid down your weapons.
These poems will offend a number of people who will refuse to ignore them,
some of them people with fathers,
fathers in law or fathers on Capitol Hill,
and men and women of influence with fathers of money in Iowa.
Their commercial potential is laughable,
the Big Five publishers will spend zero money printing these poems,
zero money ordering cured meat for the book party,
the ruling class will read them but only on days
when a family member is assassinated or during nationally televised tragedies,
and they will tell you the middle class is vanishing,
but the middle class will beat itself to death with this book,
the middle class will call this young girl a woman of hatred of men,
the middle class will critique her,
the middle class will call her a national treasure,
the middle class will market her,
the middle class will interrogate her about her sex,
they say the middle class has vanished
but it’s the poor of this country who should rear up and throw books of poetry
through the walls of the White House
and no list of demands attached.
These poems are dedicated to no man or woman who’s yet been born,
to the slugs that will never leave your gun,
to milkmen Miss Universe snake oil salesmen
Russian volleyball champions grave diggers
bribed congressmen waste managers astronauts
deserters zookeepers mega-millions lottery winners
knife collectors ex-military tax evaders careerists
doomed politicians musicologists bread and butter men
buskers anti-defamation lobbyists government shills
bad feminists okay feminists slander enthusiasts postal workers
wall street propagandists gunrunners unfamous poets
advice columnists javelin throwers failed nuclear
warhead designers beauty school dropouts
spam writers cocktail artisans viola wunderkinds
Brazilian crust punks mall cops secret service men
taxidermists web hackers hypnotherapists stunt actors
card sharks bible thumpers porn stars manchildren
fire eaters lumberjacks bodyguards and whistleblowers
conspiracy theorists hijackers children born without throats
hung juries and hangmen and whomever death will not love.
If these poems don’t throw themselves through your windows please burn them.
If you are the same person building himself a ham sandwich
inside his living room after you finish them
please shoplift every edition of this book you can find
please tear out the pages
and please burn them to warm your house through the winter.
The time of writing books that don’t send us to jail is dead.
Drinking vinho verde under the harvest moon and puttering our lines is dead.
Asking yourself and asking yourself why a poem is the enemy of money is dead.
If you will leave this book on a wood slat and gaping down at the world
please throw it on the floor instead.
Or instead please burn it.
Instead fire it out of a trébuchet at the White House.
This book was written to terrify the fucking.
Like the last poems you read before the hostile takeover.
Like the first lines you speak when the plane disappears.
This book was written to break the back of the sawhorse between you and the police.
A book like the earth you might salt if you warred against you.