kicking your ass

Hey, donkeys.

Welcome to the first issue of kicking your ass, the only literary magazine published with a grudge.

As a donkey-fronted literary institution, we have an affinity for history’s great ungulates. Icons like that one mule in the Bible. You know the one. Jesus rode in on it while throwing out rosaries like Mardi Gras beads to screaming fans in Jerusalem. And who can forget Joe Camel, the chain-smoking dromedary whose life was cut short in 1997 after a protracted battle with the U.S. legal system?

Into that storied heritage, we want to welcome P.K. Lucius, the sunglasses-wearing donkey who appears in our logo. What can we say about P.K. Lucius? He’s got a lot of attitude, loves carrots and aggressively self-identifies as a 3 on the Kinsey scale. In short, a perfect avatar for the poetry community.

Speaking of poetry: we’ve got some great poets in this inaugural issue. I’m excited for you to read their work. I know you could be doing other things right now. You could be doing your job, or volunteering for that cause you’ve been meaning to take up, or spending time with your kids, but you’re not. Instead, you’re here, reading poetry. There’s a word for that, and that word is “hero.”

Oh yeah, one more thing: If you want to be part of this phenomenal paying poetry opportunity, submissions are open for issue no. 2. We’re trying a theme for issue two: The Feast of the Ass. Send us some funny poems about eating (food, ass, whatever). We’ll be in touch.

Okay, that’s enough. Go read some poems.

– adrian

TWO LAKES

There’s a lake nearby
called Lake Hands
because the guy who named it
thought it
looked like two outstretched hands
connected at the thumbs
three miles away
there’s another lake
that looks like a lake
called Lake Conundrum

Mike Andrelczyk is the author of four poetry collections including “!!!” (Ghost City Press, 2023). He lives in Pennsylvania.

Except When It’s Not

on Love is a Dog from Hell, by Charles Bukowski

Megan Cassiday is a creative writing student from Michigan and the EIC of Dead Fern Press. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Bullshit Lit, The Daily Drunk, Back Patio Press, and others. You can find her on Twitter @MeganLyn_

I BUILD THE PUZZLE

Previously the bad word was brutal
and everyone wanted it from fiction
or it was real, or weak, masculinity,
muscularity, and the one connection
your train of thought. You, protagonist.
That’s the way men used to write
before they got too afraid, so afraid,
which is what I’m telling you about.
In the bad old days there was room
for error, an abundance mindset for it.
They laid the track quickly for a type
of man who could shout his way through
an entire evening. That man has never
been harmed despite his risky behavior.

I build the puzzle that I have to unlock.
I lay the track down before my own steps.
I call upon the forces of nature to destroy
any structure I deem irrelevant, even now.
I bury my own resume in exchange for
a set of tools in pink so I can read them.
Each day there is a bad word and mostly
the word is mucus or flatmate. While
the yellow fire burns, a dark photosynthesis
occurs yonder and the films curl to blink
out. The flame isn’t hot and we inhale
some new chemicals that go right to work
inside us. Our body temperatures edge up
briefly a half-degree, then down a full one.
When we cough a little blood tomorrow
we can type it all out in detail to make a
real record of what happened here while
we simulated practicing transubstantiation.

Krystal Languell lives in Chicago. She is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Systems Thinking with Flowers, selected by Rae Armantrout as the winner of the first fonograf editions book contest, published in early 2022. She works for a family foundation and in her unpaid time participates in dynamic resource mobilization with and for recently-arrived and formerly-unhoused folks.

KIDS CAME IN AT SIX

Kids came in at six
demanding honey and yogurt.
I got up and made it
wanting you to sleep.
They said they didn’t want it.
They hated honey.
Yogurt was gross.
They wanted oatmeal
and blueberries instead.
I made it for them.
They said they didn’t want it.
They wanted toast
with butter on it.
I made it for them.
They started crying
saying they were starving.
I asked them what they wanted.
Not that, they screamed.
Not words. Not questions.

Mark Leidner’s most recent book Returning the Sword to the Stone (Fonograf Editions, 2021) was named Best Poetry of 2021 by the New York Times. You can read more of his writing at markleidner.substack.com

SELF-PORTRAIT AS A TIRED PLACE

Muhammed Olowonjoyin [TPC III] is a Nigerian poet. Winner of the 2023 Dawn Prize for Poetry, his poems have featured or are forthcoming in Gutter Magazine, Pepper Coast Lit, Olney Magazine, Stanchion, Poetry Column NND, Brittle Paper, The Sunlight Press, and elsewhere. A Best Small Fictions 2023 finalist, he won an Honorary Mention in the inaugural Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature. He tweets @APerSe_.

Here at kicking your ass, we love all our contributors, even the ones we reject. In order to learn more about what it’s like to be rejected by us, we’ve interviewed one of the poets. You can find our interview with poet Chris Corlew, as well as his poem, below.

Chris, thanks for joining us. We’re really excited to have you here. An author who got rejected by a lit mag. Wow. Readers never get to hear from them. They only ever get to read work from the people who get published. Seems unfair, don’t you think?

It does seem unfair that we only hear from published authors. By the way, thanks for this box of nutraceuticals.

Call it a consolation prize. Poets, on the whole, seem undernourished. Why do you think we rejected your poem? 

I assume because of the birds.

How do you feel about receiving a kicking your ass rejection? 

Lotta people don’t know this—because I never talk about it—but I used to work on a boat. I was a deckhand and a bartender. Coast Guard-certified, too. Wore little stripes on my shoulders and everything. Entrance to this motor vessel (one of the first mates called it a motor vessel to me one time) was on the lower deck, we’re talking a two-story ship here, and sure, if you were tall enough, you might bonk the ol’ noodle on the exterior hull of the upper deck. So, in addition to counting each passenger with a little clicker so you could record in the Captain’s Log how many souls were aboard (sorry for saying souls, I know this is a poetry publication), we deckhands had to stand by the entrance and tell the tourists WATCH YR HEAD as they boarded. Without fail, every single ride, at least three people under 5’5″ would say “oh, you don’t have to tell me to watch my head.” It was real funny. 

All that is to say, receiving my kicking your ass rejection was a real…well, you know.

So, Chris, you’re a white guy who hosts a podcast and publishes a substack. When did it become your dream to be an insufferable cliche? 

I used to be in a Christian pop punk band. I see myself in Nicholas Hoult’s characters in The Menu AND About A Boy. People forget, but Nicholas Hoult acapella sang a Fugees song in that movie. You jagoffs should be grateful for the amount of insufferable I’m holding back from my public life. 

How tough was it to downgrade from playing Christian punk to writing poetry? I’m guessing you’re still in that blood feud with Reliant K. 

“13 Ways of Looking At How Matt Theisen’s a Poser.” There’s a poem for you.

You host The Line Break podcast with poet Bob Sykora. Which one of you is the weaker link in that duo? 

Bob has no jumper but boxes out and sets good picks. I have a great jumper but do not play winning basketball. Bob is the one who has published a book. However, Bob lives in Kansas City, and I live in Chicago, so—Dr. Jack’s giving me the edge. 

You’re also collaborating with Brendan Johnson on a serialized novel, Vine, about your home state of Tennessee, which you depict as a land of monsters, atrocities and horrors. What do you have against the Volunteer State?

The right term is novel-in-stories, actually, thanks for reading. Who said you have to have something against the state of Tennessee to depict it as a land of monsters, atrocities, and horrors? When I was growing up, Tennessee was a loose collection of college football programs and evangelical churches held together by dry-rubbed ribs. Now it’s all of that, plus the rich realized it’s a tax haven, so they excavated its entire soul and made it the Bachelorette Party Capital Of The World. You know something? The state tourism board should be calling Brendan and me to effusively thank us for giving Tennessee some credibility back. Monsters, atrocities, and horrors. I’d much rather live in a land of shape-shifters and witches than sit for Sunday Service at World Outreach Church or New Vision Baptist Church or somewhere else whose parking lots only got bigger throughout my time in high school. When you start seeing a bunch of Zak Bagans wannabes hiking the Appalachian Trail looking for the consecrated land of Vine, you’ll know Tennessee’s back, baby. They’re going to change the Titans’ name to the Bell Witches. Re-open Opryland, too.

from YOU WILL BE MORE SAFE NOT IN THIS PLACE

Chris Corlew is a writer and musician based in Chicago. His work has appeared in Cotton Xenomorph, Whisk(e)y Tit, Vagabond City, Cracked.com, and Mental Floss. With Bob Sykora, he co-hosts The Line Break, a podcast about poetry and basketball. With Brendan Johnson, he is 1/2 of Lazy & Entitled, a writing and music project. Chris can be found blogging at shipwreckedsailor.substack.com or on Twitter/Bluesky @thecorlew.