levelheaded: Jimmy Walks

This poem’s podcast is a sort of anti-podcast. Generally, the podcasts that gain the most cultural traction occupy a space between education and entertainment. They blend the high and lowbrow. They’re peppered with pithy lines that appeal to our related senses of humor and empathy. There is a structural and tonal uniformity to them. We’re thinking Fresh Air, Serial, WTF. This “podcast” operates differently.

The poem announces its speaker’s intent to operate within our expectations of a podcast.  For instance, it includes “PODCAST TRANSCRIPT” as a subtitle. It separates itself into segments (as if there are sponsors to punctuate Jimmy’s monologue). It has a quirky title pulled from the text of the transcript. It starts by telling us (and repeating), “You’re listening to Jimmy Walks.” The poem’s podcast tries to operate within this structure, or at least signifies it’s conscious of received notions of podcasts.

But it’s clear that the poem’s primary mode is resistant to received notions. One, it’s a poem written as a podcast transcript. There’s a tradition of writing poems in non-poetic forms (to read a master of this sort of thing, see: Paul Violi’s “Index” or “Exacta” or “Triptych”), and like the best of these, this poem turns its form’s quirks and curiosities into tools. For example, it’s able to use “first time listeners” as a tool maintain mystery without alienating us. Two, it throws some weird meme stuff in the mix with the phrase “PUBLIC DOMAIN INTENSIFIES.” It signals its intent to subvert, to push the bounds.

Jimmy’s disdainful, dismissive approach does not diminish Dallas. Modern readers are adept at recognizing persona-building, so modern readers can’t possibly trust Jimmy’s take on Dallas. We see his insults as attempts at building a persona out of cynicism. His opinions become a portrait of himself, and we end up curiously invested in his failure. What, for instance, does it mean that he spends the first obsessing over food (see: taquito, Slushee, snickerdoodles, coffee, Pabst Blue Ribbon)? What does it mean that he’s ignored everything we might know about Dallas? What is he proud of? Aren’t we all first time listeners? As a podcast, Jimmy Walks is terrible. As a poem, it makes its own misery a subject worth considering.

-The Editors