The third book in
Tommy Pico’s Teebs trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice
floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In
the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a
boyfriend, what can you grab onto for orientation? The narrator
wonders what happens to the sense of self when the illusion of
security has been stripped away. And for an indigenous person, how do
these lost markers of identity echo larger cultural losses and
erasures in a changing political landscape? In part taking its cue
from A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Teebs names this liminal space “Junk,”
in the sense that a junk shop is full of old things waiting for their
next use; different items that collectively become indistinct. But
can there be a comfort outside the anxiety of utility? An
appreciation of “being” for the sake of being? And will there be
Chili Cheese Fritos?
