If you don’t know Tommy “Teebs” Pico by now, you should. Pico is the author of many books published in the last few years, all of which are kinda like a mix between poetry, novel-in-verse, and very slutty Tumblr posts. He is an indigenous American poet hailing from the Kumeyaay nation on the Viejas reservation, where he got his start writing and making zines.
His poems are irreverent queer anthems and this year, he received the $50,000 Whiting Award prize (just one of many things his work has won) for a book-length poem that contained content about Grindr, eating ass, and Beyoncé. Now that’s what we call poetic justice. As you might have guessed, as an Indigenous American, his relationship with the colonialist holiday of Thanksgiving is not too sweet. We asked if we could excerpt this piece from his most recent work, Junk, which was first published in the new anthology New Poets of Native Nations. Enjoy (or don’t, he doesn’t care).
Picture it: Sicily, 1923 Whoops I mean Thanksgiving dinner w/
family in town from the rez at a midtown resto, blackberriesin the whipped cream while the Washington Redskins blaze on
TV behind us Or last month when police clashed with waterprotectors Tore down encampments and elders and children
On the same day milk-toned Oregonian militiamen r acquittedafter armed occupation of land On the same day the Cleveland
Indians r in the World Series during American Indian heritagemonth Before, in the past, this world discovered war Berlin
Afghanistan Terracotta Slob War War War in the front of everynewspaper In the back of every noggin Sludgy nympho gummy
bear humps the Haribo package—Body monuments and lightcigarettes Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper and a bag of Hot Cheetos
Cholera epidemic in Haiti where there is no immunity becauseCholera was like the only thing that never befell Hispaniola
Rasp is sassy but Junk is punk Static in its intention Static inits emotional release Static in the city Buzz of disbelief White-
house domes every convo We are a part of the rhythm nation Iget this teaching gig and being an authority figure, let me tell u
is such an emperor has no clothes situation Like being onstageVery, “I’m more afraid of you than you are of me” Sharon Jones
glides on about being an injured prison guard on Riker’s IslandTerry Gross asks, “How were you able to convince the prisoners
that you were strong enough and focused enough to do the joband keep them inline?” Sharon says “It’s the look in my eyes…
You could not show fear, and that’s one thing I didn’t show” Tryit on Saying “pilfer is a fun word” enough times makes it true,
like petticoat coffee cakes and the invention of blue raspberryDummy stay on message I never intended to be a professional
NDN but this time of year every1 wants to know do I celebrateThanksgiving? Janet is still with us, despite the retreat of
common sense, the retreat of fall, the retreat of Sharon Jonesand David Bowie and Prince and Vanity and Leonard Cohen
Phife Dawg and George Michael Do you remember what it waslike to feel warmth from the sun? It’s odd, right? For light to
only be light and not also heat The sun conceals things too, inits glare It makes sense that it took me the whole year before I cd
entertain talking to u again Back in our crystalline season I wasright 2 suspect worth in yr grace You aren’t evil for not loving me
Maybe it’s a retrograde situation Look into the sky, yearning to besomeplace else When you gobble gobble so fast it’s like dinner
never happened & even now conjuring you feels like a diversionbut yr the reason I started writing this in the first place Michelle
Tea says when you write about someone, you have to be able tolook them in the face Your faces are many Your shoulders are
different colors Sometimes yr EXTREMELY tall and sometimes onlyvery tall Sometimes yr face is golden smooth and cut like a English
garden Sometimes yr face is lunar, bright chalk white n crateredSometimes we were together for six weeks Sometimes eight
months Sometimes I don’t know yet We sit still in our gurgle sackswaiting for each other to change Waiting for our stomachs to glow
pink again in the gallery night But we dimmed Each time we dimwe dimmed differently but we dimmed we did The Metro Link
Light Rail SEPTA MTBA Amtrak Bolt Bus Megabus the Peter Panthe MAX Metro North Marc Train Charm City Circulator The
opposite of escape A firming in the firmament The couch Anairbed Yoga mat and sometimes just the floor Man punches
woman at bar Man screams at woman in diner Man yells atwoman in a hijab in Queens “Man, man, menace” is like a weird
game of “duck, duck, goose” The hollow taste on the inside of yrmouth when u haven’t eaten all day Make out with boys named
Patrick n Gerald n Martin n David and suck on his finger at the barwith the empty blue fish tank and random lotto ball cage Drink
Shiners in his backyard Threesomes are awkward af mostly bceveryone is wasted so it feels like heavy turbulence on the twin
bed in this liver I mean sliver of apartment Last Resort LagunitasGoose Island The shot special Two more packages of Reece’s Old
Fashioned Narragansett and Jameson on the rocks Whateverinsulates you from the calving face of this gd world When has
sympathy for the oppressor ever worked for us? The poem andreading the poem become each other Echolocation The sound of
a shape The news leaps through me like a talking dog—unreal,no? I don’t know where the feeling is or what to do with it n
spent most of the day w/ my eyes squeezed shut but then Iwent for a run to force feed myself some endorphins Wrote a
few couplets and texted all my friends and went to the rallyand marched bc it felt restorative to blast night with my voice
box and stomp the sidewalks and the streets with friends fortwenty blocks in all directions Whole blocks of avenues in all
directions swell w/peeps shouting MUSLIM RIGHTS AREHUMAN RIGHTS and MY BODY MY CHOICE and BLACK LIVES
MATTER and WATER IS LIFE and TRANS LIVES MATTER Then wegot a drink and for a couple hours it seemed like we’d just been
in some horrible dream As if the fog lifted and we could hearthrough the static Feel the sun again But it’s only growing colder
This is just the beginning And yeah maybe the path back fromcomplacency is lion mane but I was afraid a long time b4 these days
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