(St. Martin's Press: 1993)
Back in 1992, I was living in a decrepit trailer in Oxford, Mississippi, with my buddy, Eric Cash. We were graduate students at Ole Miss, self-identifying poets,big time beer drinkers, and broke as hell. One day the phone rang and on the other end was a guy named Richard Peabody. Never heard of him. Oddly enough, however, he had heard of me. Turns out Richard was the respected editor of a top-flight literary magazine called Gargoyle. With fellow editor Lucinda Ebersole, he was putting together an anthology of poems and stories about Barbie for St. Martin's Press, and had heard through the grapevine that I might have a few that they should consider for the collection. The grapevine was Cheryl Ann Townsend, known in the literary small press world as CAT, who only a few months earlier had published, through her Implosion Press, a brief chapbook of my poems under the title, Not Another Blonde Joke, in which all manner of horrid things happened to poor Barbie. I don't know how CAT knew of Richard and Linda's project, but I'm forever grateful that she did and was gracious enough to recommend me to them.
Long story short, that very day I sent Richard the twenty-five or so Barbie poems I'd written and he soon chose two for the book. These were "Hell's Angels Barbie," and "Confederate Barbie." When it came out, Mondo Barbie was greeted with enthusiasm from such venerable places as the New York Times, the Village Voice, Kirkus Reviews, and more.
If memory serves, I was paid fifty dollars and a copy of the book, although that might be wrong. This was a long time ago, folks. And did I mention that I drank a lot of beer in those days?
One fine day, I got a package in the mail with Richard Peabody's return address. I tore open the mailer and soon held in my hands a most unusual book. Oh, how I loved it. The cover sported a lurid photo of what may have been a man in drag, wearing garish makeup and a couple of hair curlers. The pages were pink -- PINK! -- and untrimmed along the front edge. It didn't take long for me to discover that, in my copy at least, the page which held "Confederate Barbie" stuck out a bit from the rest of the text block. This meant that the book opened naturally to my poems for anyone who might casually flip through it. How cool was that? Very. Even more cool, Richard had sent along a photocopy of the New York Times's glowing review.
Being that I was pursuing a graduate degree in English, I took my copy to the department chair, whom I will not identify here. I handed him the book and the review and braced myself for praise and congratulations. Instead, he turned Mondo Barbie over in his hand a time or two and handed it back to me. His only comment? "I can't believe they reviewed this."
Well, pal, they did. And all these years later, the book is still in print and I'm still in love with it. That Barbie. What a doll.
This guy writes about Mondo Barbie.
As does this one.
And here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say.
This is what I looked like around the time of Mondo Barbie. I was thrilled beyond recognition to be included in what turned out to be a pretty significant book. The thrill remains.
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