Recipe for an angel poem
A modern twist on a classic dish
For more than four years now, I’ve been doing pay-what-you-like Zoom poetry workshops (join us!) and occasionally we will look at a poem by a poet who I have tricked into giving me their cell number. So sometimes, then, I will text them during the workshop to ask their thoughts on the poem of theirs we are looking at.
This happened at last night’s gathering with the undefeated poet/comedian/muscleman Bucky Sinister - who is even on this here substack:
The poem of his we discussed and wrote off of is his “The Day the Angels Died” and our writing prompt was:
Read “The Day the Angels Died” by Bucky Sinister (sorry it’s just from an Instagram post - I’m getting my own, easier-to-read version of it again soon)
List ten religious characters
Pick one and write about meeting them
While discussing the poem, one of our regular workshoppers wondered what might have been going on in Bucky’s mind when he wrote the piece, so I texted him to see.
He started by saying “oh god that was a long time ago” but then he went off:
“I was a little fascinated with angel imagery at the time... I had a good friend who was a sculptor who made pieces from found dead animals... I was thinking about what happened to angels when they died, like if they just fell out of the sky or whatever... Occasionally large groups of birds die off at the same time... google 'mass bird death.'"
He then sent a bunch of other ingredients to the poem:
The poem "Angels" by George Tirado that he posted on his LiveJournal in 2009.
"How the Pope is Chosen" by James Tate
Juliette Lewis's monologue about angels in Natural Born Killers
"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." -Hebrews 13:2
"So it's probably me thinking about all these at once… Growing up fundamentalist, we thought that angels were literally in the world, posing as humans in need to test us."
I told him that I feel like the resulting poem is what happens when the Dumb and Dumber guys wander into a David Lynch film.
I like that all these disparate influences led to this piece but Bucky is still clearly the one portioning, mixing, and preparing the final poem. The bit where they use mirrors to remove the halos, and that the inside of the angel bodies are full of putrid, marshmallowy “angelpus” - those are just good, original sci-fi details. And as we discussed last night: whatever calamity that led to the deaths of all the angels is not even considered in the poem. The characters respond to this event with very little introspection, curiosity, or terror. As Franny Choi says: The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On.
So, like a cooking blog trying to maximize its SEO, I will now just share the recipe:
“The Day the Angels Died” by Bucky Sinister
prep time: 30-ish years
cook time: I don’t know, a week?
total time: 30.0192-ish years
yields: inescapable imagery for the rest of your days
INGREDIENTS
Former belief in literal angels
Friend who sculpts with animal carcasses
Mass bird deaths
“Angels” by George Tirado
“How the Pope is Chosen” by James Tate
Juliette Lewis’s angel monologue in Natural Born Killers
The bible
INSTRUCTIONS
Experience all the ingredients for a long time.
Think about angels a lot.
Be Bucky Sinister.
Make it “symbolic of something.”
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve hot or at unexpected intervals throughout your life.
You can buy the book that the poem appears in (All Blacked Out and Nowhere To Go) for only $6 from Gorsky Press.