top of page

The News Factory Questions And Answer

  • Writer: Matthew Abuelo
    Matthew Abuelo
  • May 1, 2013
  • 4 min read

The News Factory Questions And AnwersNews Factory Cover An inside look at one the most powerful poetry books to come out in the past twenty yearsWhat is The News Factory about? The News Factory is collection of stories of some of New York City's most brilliant personalities, people who will never be in feature films or hit the pop charts but who are brilliant, with wonderful ideas, artistic talents, story tellers, musicians and so on. In many ways the stories told in this collection of works, mostly told through poetry, is about the soul of what New York city used to be about, a place to be yourself without putting on airs. The collective meaning of this book is also about what is lost with the white washing of history that comes with gentrification. In many ways this is the most personal of my three books. What kind of characters are you talking about? Well it varies from the local corner book seller to SRO tenants. In one case I mention a homeless woman who met on 91st and Broadway about 4 years ago who was a former Glamour Magazine model from the 1980s and who now has AIDS, assuming she is still alive. But I also mention the neighborhood dog walker and so on. What do you mean this is your most personal of your three books? I mean the subjects of this poetry and short story collection really holds a lot of meaning for me, I've put many of my friends in there - and enemies too; landlords who hire goons and thugs to drive tenants from their buildings. I mean these operations have real psychological implications for those who have to deal with it. I've seen it happen to my now former neighbors, many of whom still live in my old building. Horrible. I also feel a certain amount of remorse for the death of the porn houses that use to be in Times Square or the live shows you could see in the back room booths on 8th Ave until recently. It really was part of the scene but they're gone now. I don't think you can really label those guys who went to see these shows perverts, most of them were really lonely or just had a healthy sexual appetite. And like the housing issue this was something I felt close to. Wouldn't you agree that change is a part of life and some loss is inevitable? Well in part yes, everything changes but that does not mean that every story has to be whitewashed from history or that neighborhoods have to disappear altogether because some out-of-towner wants to make a killing in the housing market. As it is no one can live here for very long without rent regulation and what kind of change is that? It is recipe for utter disaster which comes with the death of communities. As it is New York is becoming like Paris or London; "Museum cities". The News Factory is a chronicle of those stories which are far too easily erased from consciousness or just never known. In your first two books "Last American Roar" and "Organic Hotels" you had a definite political tone to your work, mostly concerning international issues. With the N.F. you seem to focus on local life. Why did you make that change? That's where my focus has been for past few years. Plus when you meet people going through the same things, it is these experiences that become real to you. I feel for the Iraqis and Afghanis and so on. Truth is I can't imagine the hell which their lives have been reduced to. The same things can be said for the Palestinians who tend to be seen as less than human by the international community these days. My heart goes out to them but, we have a war on the working class in this country and it is our neighbors who are being greatly affected. What do you think your readers will get out of your poetry and stories? They will have a whole world opened up to them; the world they already live in - which may be surprising. But, more importantly, I think they will be treated to an adventure where the landscape becomes cerebral and allows the reader to delve into their own fears and apprehensions. But most important, this book is an introduction to everyday people and the humor of their lives. Humor? There is a lot of humor in this book. In one fictionalized story a young man is visited by a giant cockroach which forces him into a modern day "Old Man and the Sea" tale. He tears about his room to get at the insect and at the same time has a mental break down. Anyone who has been in a roach invested apartment can tell you, that problem can drive you absolutely mad. This book was released this bast March and can be found at the link. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781935514930

 
 
 

Comentarios


Featured Posts
Recent Posts
Search By Tags
Follow Us
  • Facebook Classic
  • Twitter Classic
  • Google Classic

© 2023 by Saman

Guilt

 

Why do we race for the scrap heaps of all forgotten things?

Is it to watch the plumes of smoke

Bellowing from a future

Which is not a future but wasted hours waiting

For men and women to finally stand

But who never stood for anything at all?

Do you understand?

And what are the solutions

When the young become as brutal as New York City landlords

Turning our buildings into shooting galleries

For out of towners who walk pretty

In their cock sure skin

With its perfect glow

And whose gravity broadens the shoulders of

Those who live with bent backs

From the labor of becoming exhibits

For those who will never stay

but will always be

Just visiting.

As one mayor put it

“New York is open for business”.

The brutality Mr. Algren is that only the truly wealthy

Can own a judge

And getting off on a misdemeanor is afforded only to

Those who can pay the price of admission of staying out of the tombs.

 

 

2

 

Are we (the new Indians)

To be buried under the ruins

That were our rooms

Or the bathroom that sat at the end of the hall?

 

Oh New York

With your buildings as clean as ancient Rome

Would you have the waters of the Hudson River

Wash us away into the oceans

And our breath bleached from your air?

And what are air rights other than

A rich man’s attempt to claim the horizon as his own?

Are we to wash up on the shores of Plumb Island

With all the news papers

Used syringes and Coney Island white fish?

Even the taxi driver who passes through the nights

On streets that are nowhere avenues to him

Will never call the great pinball machine of Time Square home.

His place is across the George Washington Bridge where he disappears

Into the view across the Hudson.

Someone saw to that along time ago

In some backroom deal.

 

You can’t love a city

Unless you love its ghosts

Who will always haunt the SRO of the heart.

They are all there here:

The subway suicide diver

Whose last act of desperation delayed the 1 train for 6 hours.

The squeegee man

who will forever clean passing windshields at new intersections with old and soiled water

The shut in

who lost her mind only to be locked up in Saint Lukes

The street artist who found his lot among other street artists in Washington Square Park

Before freezing to death in the jaws winter.

Or all of the iron workers whose words will never make it into the history

As dirty faced testimonies of those buried under the concrete

Of a story white washed.

Richard who wound up on the streets after being evicted from the apartment he was born in

 for being a hoarder

Only to be let back in a few months later

Then dying in the hospital two weeks later.

There is the cop who was shot in the head up in the Bronx

And the punk still looking for a place to play

Now that CBGB is gone

 

A question to the city from a letter

Are you really a dying arcade?

 

ta Jonse. Proudly created with Wix.com

FOLLOW ME

  • Facebook Classic
  • Twitter Classic
  • c-youtube
bottom of page