BRIAN ALARCON
Name and pronouns?
Brian Alarcon, he/him.
Aside from a poet, what else are your interests/hobbies?
I'm super into writing about art, as I've been a visual artist much, much longer than a poet. I'm also big on swimming, biking and skateboarding.
When did you write your first poem? Tell me about it
I think it was Junior year of high school. There was this poem going around Tumblr that blew my mind, something about a depressed skinny girl, and I was obsessed with Shakespeare at the time. Sso I wrote a mash-up between a sonnet and an emo Tumblr poem in my sketchbook.
Why do you continue to write?
The more I learn about literature and language, the more it excites me to be able to use it for art-making. Every year I get smarter and my writing gets deeper. My whole life has been this rampant search to find my medium, so poetry feels like a blissful conclusion to my youth.
Can you only write in a specific location? What is your writing process ?
I can write anywhere, although I appreciate sitting in front of a computer and typing. My goal when I'm writing is always to amuse myself. I will mix through a series of memories, historical facts and language patterns until there is a completed piece that will make me go "Ah! I'm witty!" The way an abstract painter might say "Ah! A landscape!"
Has being a poet caused dating problems?
Yes, many. My first serious boyfriend would go through my poetry to find out more about me. He would take all my poems at face value, even if they were imagined scenarios. We also often wrote abstract poems/letters to each other instead of communicating our problems. I mostly don't share my work with my partners nowadays.
Poet Stereotypes?
Weird to think about, because everyone in my poetry program at college was pretty nerdy, soft spoken and boring; which I think are the stereotypes. But every poet I've met outside of the academic realm is so cool, chaotic, covered in tattoos or wearing the craziest clothes. The kind of poets I look up to in history are more like that, so I choose the latter stereotypes.
How have you seen poetry written or spoken be mixed with other mediums of art
Every way imaginable! Poems as paintings, as sculptures, as theater, as dance, as music. At its core, poetry is simply the use of language as art. When you stop thinking of it as line breaks and rhyme schemes and even an outlet for your emotions, anything with words can be poetry.
Do you think we can make poetry go as mainstream as visual mediums?
Absolutely. Maybe not in the way it is now, but the public is open to it. We need to find new ways of making poetry that is appealing to our short attention spans. For example, Rupi Kaur has been perfect for social media because her work doesn't take much brain power, and reads really easily. Another example was the fad that Slam Poetry had a few years ago, that was driving people by the millions to Youtube looking for loud, interesting performers. As poets we have to work not just to move our poems, but also push the boundaries of the craft itself.
Where do you want poetry to go?
I do want poetry to enter the mainstream media. I want it to be new, an artform that we mold completely which no one has ever seen before. So intelligent but so cool, Instagramable, iTunes-friendly, ravidly Twitter. Informed by our incredible post-modern predecessors like the New York School, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets, Ed Sanders and Claudia Rankine; but with a style that completely obliterates theirs, and adds Asian, African, and South American knowledge to our canon.
Where can your poetry be accessed?
On my website!