You Ain’t Edgy Unless You are Hanging Over the Dark Precipice By Your Fingernails with Your Shiny Ass Dangling in the Wind
Written by John Erianne on September 18, 2008 – 1:44 pm -“Ever noticed how journals with “Nerve” in the title, or claim they want “edgy” work, don’t have the first and really want nothing to do with the latter?” — Robert O’Neal
Far be it for me to disparage another publisher of another literary publication on the basis of how “edgy” they are, but I have to agree with Robert. One of the reasons I started Devil Blossoms back in the day is that there was a genuine lack of places publishing work that I considered to be edgy. I thought there was a genuine niche that needed filling and judging by the number of submissions I received during that zine’s run, others agreed. If Devil Blossoms accomplished one good thing, it was that it made it acceptable for other journals to publish more unsavory material as opposed to the safe, sanitized poetry that populated literary journals in the late 80’s and early ’90s. The problem is that not everyone defines “edgy” the same way. For some people edgy is simply material which is vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. For others, it’s writing about taboo subjects. Other poets think they’re being edgy if they’re writing poem in all lowercase or all uppercase. Some writers think that it’s just a matter of writing about certain life experiences they’ve had — forget about whether or not they can actually write. I’ve had heroin addicts send me poems (so-called) that they think is edgy just because they are drug addicts — nevermind that the poems aren’t terribly well-written and have nothing much to say about the life of a drug addict or why anyone should even care about it. I always have the strong urge to tell them to forget poetry and enter a drug rehabilitation clinic.
The point is, other poets and editors define edgy their own way. I only know what edgy means to me, and it’s not about being a poetic badass or some wannabe bukowski poseur fucktard. It’s not a statement of lifestyle. It’s about saying the things that need to be said in a way that they need to be expressed. It’s about exposing inconvenient truths. It’s about dancing on the pinhead of reality. A truly edgy writer isn’t a writer who pushes the envelope or breaks boundaries — an edgy writer doesn’t even believe in envelopes or boundaries. It’s about fearlessness. It’s about the rage to live — about not going gentle into that goodnight. It’s about believing in nothing at face value but being able to wrap your mind around the possibility of everything. It’s not about being a vulgar asshole. Vulgarity for the sake of being vulgar misses the whole point of vulgarity — that we are all imperfect beings living imperfect lives in an imperfect world and vulgarity is part of that. It’s neither something to be ashamed of nor something we should be especially proud of. We embrace it simply because it is. Edginess is the recognition that we are, all of us living a breath away from a tumble into the abyss. So if you don’t get that or can’t accept that fact, you can’t be an edgy writer. If you are afraid of offending other people, you will never be an edgy writer. If you are only interested in offending other people without any interest in enlightening and entertaining your audience, you will never be a truly edgy writer. Not in my book.
