RedPubPod #033 “Getting Tangled in Jay Orlando’s Lineage!”

[00:00:00] this is RedPubPod, RedPubPod. A podcast for RedHub publications. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening depending upon where you are in podcast land. This is RedPubPod. Q the music. My name's Robert Kvip and I'm here with Patricia Thompson and Richard

[00:00:28] Eller and our guest today is poet Jay Orlando and we are talking about his book called a Tangled lineage published by RedHub publications. I'm going to let Patty start off our conversation today.

[00:00:48] Thank you now. I'm going to date all of us in this room, Jay because back when we were kids and we used to have these evening primetime comedies and sometimes they would say things

[00:00:58] as dramatic as a very special episode of Blossom which is that something very special episode of sign. Yeah, we never knew what it was going to happen to pour the water. But today is episode.

[00:01:12] It's one of those things where we've always done poetry. It's our bread and butter. However, this particularly poetry book lends itself to a bigger and broader conversation. In light of this being June, Pride Month, Jay, you are a transgender poet and it's the

[00:01:32] elephant in the room in that. Normally we would ask somebody what spurred you to write a book or is there a personal story behind it? Well, this is your personal story. So this is different

[00:01:41] and so as a result, I thank you. It's been a pleasure and we're very prideful to be able to publish this book. But we do have some additional questions beyond your normal questions

[00:01:54] we would ask a poet. This book is clearly about your life. It's about your story as transgender, transgender male living and Pennsylvania specifically the Appalachian region which again, we've done tons of poetry books and many that are focused on Appalachian. But with your background,

[00:02:13] it does lend itself to some extra questions and specifically you as a child and if you don't mind me being linear, could you tell us a little bit about your coming out journey?

[00:02:26] Yeah, sure. So for me it was kind of a step by step thing. I didn't actually know that transgender men existed until I was 17. I came out as a lesbian when I was 15. I was actually

[00:02:45] outed at my school. I had confided in a friend and that was very difficult because I am come from a town of about 2,000 people and I'm related to most of them and it is not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking. Though I do really love my hometown and

[00:03:06] I spent a lot of time in high school getting bullied. They wrote slurs on my locker. I got pushed down the stairs a few times and the administration mostly ignored it because they didn't see any reason to correct behavior that they saw as correcting me. When I was 17,

[00:03:27] I saw in after school special, not really after school special. It is one of those trashy documentaries, right? Like about it was a shock dock kind of thing about trans people and

[00:03:40] I remember sitting there and realizing, oh my god that's me and that was a really pivotal moment but I didn't come out to my family until I was in my 20s because I wasn't sure how they would react

[00:03:53] and honestly they've all taken things pretty well even my 94-year-old grandmother has taken it all of that really well. I started transitioning at 28, at least my physical transition at 28. I have dealt a lot with realizing that there were a lot of times in my childhood when I knew

[00:04:12] I wasn't a girl but I didn't know what that meant. I didn't have the words or the context if that makes sense. It does and thank you for sharing that with us by the way because you're educating

[00:04:24] us as well as anyone else that's listening to this of course but it is interesting to hear you didn't know what you were in your skin but right. He didn't feel like that skin was

[00:04:35] what you were supposed to be and that's what I'm hearing you say. It was odd because you know, I knew I was socialized to be a woman and I knew that's what I was supposed to be in the eyes

[00:04:47] of the people around me but I never felt like I fit in. I felt like I didn't get a man you if that makes sense. I felt like everybody else had this secret manual to adulthood and womanhood

[00:04:59] and I didn't have it and so I was always messing up somehow and I just hated it. It was awful and I've become a lot more comfortable now expressing femininity now that I'm comfortable in my body

[00:05:13] if you follow. Yeah and you know what's kind of interesting to me especially as I read books from our Appalachian authors it seems to me that a lot of female standard women that are brought up in the mountains they tend to hunt, they tend to shoot guns,

[00:05:35] they tend to do boy stuff so that's kind of the interesting thing for me and maybe I am stereotyping to a certain degree but it seems like whether or not you felt you fit in your skin

[00:05:51] you might still be doing things that some folks might think is being a little on the masculine side right? My father when he found out he was having what he thought was a girl when he thought when he found

[00:06:02] up my mother was pregnant his first his first reaction was to say well can I still take her hunting? No of course and he did I'm sure he did that so I read that in the book and again

[00:06:18] that's not unusual for a lot of my friends that I have a lot of buddies and West Virginia all my girlfriends they can hunt kill and dress you know date that's what their brought up doing

[00:06:28] so again I appreciate the candor and letting us know having gone through your transgender experience and still in a small part of Pennsylvania it's a small and not a large community how has it been on the

[00:06:42] other side roses and lollipops and unicorns or do you still face some challenges? how are things now in your life? things are good here for the most part I love this little college

[00:06:52] town so much we have a pretty good LGBTQ community here not huge but we all know each other my biggest struggle has been now that I'm on the other side so to speak um when I meet people who

[00:07:10] don't know that I'm trans and who's seedling just as another guy is I didn't really anticipate signing up be part of the good old boys club and the things men stand loose oh my god

[00:07:26] I need to pick up truck and yeah man stay at the bar just in the company of other man when they think that they're just with somebody who's not going to challenge them it's really

[00:07:42] oh my god you've got another book yeah i'm working on some problems about that but um it's been wild honestly uh being just some of the things that people have said and and then when you do call them

[00:07:57] or you know say something that they are expecting they just you could have slapped them like it's right yeah so that's been a bit of a challenge that's what's very representational in this book is

[00:08:10] the fact that you you have an added perspective that I think shines through in this book you you you mentioned earlier that you love your home town and that comes through in this book not only

[00:08:23] do you love and respect your hometown you love and respect your raising oh even though there would be many who would have um disdain for the country kind of life and the and the hunting and I think

[00:08:39] it's interesting that you tell us that you know in a bar everyone considering you to be male you know let's tell a let's tell a dirty misogynistic joke and then you get to call them out you know

[00:08:53] because you've seen from both perspectives of what that how that hurts i wanted to i wanted to commend you on the fact that you know this is a very positive book and the and I commend you on

[00:09:05] the fact that you really do respect you're raising and you do respect your your hometown that's that's something that you don't see a lot of in a place that will bully you or other you and that's

[00:09:18] refreshing well thank you i think it's really important because a lot of a lot of queer folks and this is you know a totally valid way to do things they do kind of cut their past and you know move on

[00:09:33] and that's fine but for me reconciling with my raising and my upbringing and my family and walking that line where I'm far enough away that I have my own life but close enough that you know we still

[00:09:48] talk all the time it was it's been a very careful line to walk but i'm not a city kind of person and I respect that a lot of people are but I get claustrophobic I get there's just too much going on

[00:10:00] in cities for me so I kind of had to reconcile in a way now you know what that's interesting that you should say that a lot of young gay people are typically told it gets better move out of this

[00:10:12] small town go to the big city and you are like nah that's not me my my small town's going to have to work for me it I'm not leaving my town and I have totally a give you props for that because

[00:10:26] that that says a lot and by the way I know more than one of two instances when people left that small town to go to the big city to come out it is not been a good experience it's not it's not

[00:10:40] not been up bringing it's not they're up bringing no it's it's you know and I think I think the LGBTQ community we carry so much generational trauma and personal trauma from from the experiences that society puts us through that I think there's just a lot of work

[00:10:59] that needs to be done to me yeah if you know when it's admirable that you hang around to do it when you stay in our small communities you make us better because you're teaching us about

[00:11:10] yourself I find it to be welcoming but that's my nature to welcome which is one of the reasons why you should go to redhopvocations.com right now drop what you're doing put us on pause we won't mind

[00:11:25] and pick up a copy of a tangled lineage by Jay Orlando it really isn't my opinion one of the most important books that we've published you listen to Jay and you realize he didn't know what was going

[00:11:38] on he didn't understand himself and that's why the books help I do have a question in terms of now that you've published your first book how has been the reception a specifically friends family

[00:11:51] have you found some new fans it's reception okay the best thing that's happened so far is I was at a reading in John's town PA I do every other month I go to John's town with an open

[00:12:07] mic group that I I help out with I'm not like one of the people who runs it but when one of them can't make it I'm like the substitute and every other month we're in John's town and every other month

[00:12:18] we're in Indiana Pennsylvania and it's called Pomeong through the dark and I went and I read some poems there and I had copies of my book with me and the woman came up to me afterwards and was like

[00:12:29] I'd like to buy your book and I was like great who should I make it out to and she said I'd like you to make it out to James that's my son he's transgender too and I just about cried it was just

[00:12:41] that moment where it was like yes it's getting to who needs it you know and that was a really just exceptional moment for me because it was like I'm getting through I also had somebody from a

[00:12:55] coffee shop by it and then come back later and tell me their favorite poem that was a really sweet moment because then I knew they weren't just buying it because they knew me they bought it because

[00:13:03] they actually wanted to read it and but the the most difficult part so far has been my grandma read it she's 94 and she's currently in a rehabilitation facility because she broke her ankle

[00:13:18] and so she has all the time in the world and she read it and she texted my father to text me to tell me to call her I haven't done that yet oh go visit grandma I'm totally my conversation we're

[00:13:34] probably going on better than your imagination you might have made a mistake on what if you were in therapy so I'm going to try her again today you might have dismissed up on one of

[00:13:45] her recipes you just you never know the old the oldest person in my family married to no was my 99 year old wife 99 year old grandmother who used to sit she's passed now but she used to sit at her

[00:13:59] table in her house and she would ask me questions she would go like wrong I'm gonna ask you something about these trans people I want to understand and you know my wife would go like grandma we don't

[00:14:11] really and I go like my wife I mean she wants to understand right times you find that in people of that generation they're not like one of these people it goes like nope nope not gonna do it not

[00:14:22] gonna talk about it they want to know yeah that's a good point my grandmother has been on one hand extremely supportive of me I have a gay cousin and we both like she's been very supportive of both

[00:14:35] of us on the other hand she still thinks that if you play a rock record backwards you'll hear say tannick messages so sometimes when you play a rock record forward you'll hear satanic message

[00:14:48] she made a comment about my father recently that she hoped he wasn't out listening to that rock music and I said grandma he's sick and twice widowed I think he's allowed to listen to rock music

[00:14:59] thank you wow that's so funny after listen that devil of music if you don't mind I say you you probably have heard us tell you this before but how your manuscript ended up with us

[00:15:16] our good friend Tim Peeler is good friends with Patrick Bizarro and Patrick Bizarro introduced us to you and it was through that that I received your manuscript and Patrick who again good friend of redhawk

[00:15:31] he mentioned your transitioning journey and you're being in his class he felt the book the collection of poetry was getting to the point where it was getting ready to publish I asked for a manuscript to look at and the very first poem I read with course was lineage

[00:15:48] and I'm going to ask you to read that by the way but just just to point out that when I read that it was like being hit by a bowling ball in the tummy it was very very powerful I usually use

[00:16:02] beta readers so I gave it to one or two other poets that we use as beta readers one of them Hilda Downer who's from Appalachia Appalachia App State is a matter of fact

[00:16:13] she read it and she's like if there's any way for you guys to do this book you need to this is a powerful voice and Tony Robless another poet living in the mountains

[00:16:23] he was another one he said that he said damn that first poem so so you hit us with your best shot up front and would you mind reading that for our listeners? not at all let me just get to their right page here

[00:16:37] lineage somewhere hunter takes aim pulling back then losing the string of his bow and arrow in flight he shouts Marco into the trees somewhere a young girl tells his father I'm a boy

[00:16:50] well his mother cries over porcelain doll faces white as her chemo stretched skin and his father doesn't say anything except to tell the child we know somewhere the mountains where skin

[00:17:02] and dive into cricks to chase the shadow of a heron somewhere god is a woman sitting rigid in a hickory pew reciting songs in a board monotone well a stained glass window silently lecture predestined truths about death sex and taxes somewhere a grazing deer lifts its head to

[00:17:19] bleep hollow but too late it is on the ground air escaping its parted lips dead and the hunter is showing his child the bare bloody heart and the child is crying somewhere on mechanically minded

[00:17:31] father who saw dust under his fingernails and grease stained jeans is taught by his father how to oil a gun fix a motor build a deck but never how to stop drinking or how to cry when he

[00:17:43] needs to grieve his dead wife somewhere god is a mother in the mountains grow hooves somewhere a girl becomes a boy or always was somewhere the heart of the woods beets amid brambles and thorns and I'm holding a bow and my father is holding a bow shouting Marco

[00:18:00] over the body of a dead deer that's great work who are some of your poet heroes oh boy you've got a very interesting style in this book there are poems with interesting placement of words interesting stands of choices poems will go from left justified to center just

[00:18:23] to find yeah i'm just wondering is there anybody in particular that you followed a style or is there you know if you combine the styles of some of these because you know we stand on the shoulders of our

[00:18:35] oh yeah people who came before us so who are some of your favorites are that people that you like I know when your acknowledgements gets birds in there yes and Andrea Gibson right who is just I mean they're the poet laureate of Colorado right now

[00:18:52] and they are just they were who got me into poetry um I read their book the madness today is when I was oh my god probably 19 and that was just that blue the doors off for me um

[00:19:05] I'm also a really big fan of uh Stacy Wait who has a book called Butch Geography that was gifted to me by a professor of mine um and that was a great that was a really influential book for me

[00:19:20] as a lot of dialogue about gender and it as well and then I would say historically other than Ginsburg a big influence on me is Franco Harrow I'm a big fan of the LGBTQ poets that have

[00:19:32] come before and that are still out there doing the work so those are probably my big four well you know this is a you know this but concerns subjects that are they are oftentimes complex

[00:19:45] you know because gender itself is complex and those of us who are older those of us who are you know cisgendered we oftentimes have a hard time I just noticed that when you were talking

[00:19:55] about the poet laureate of Colorado you very easily used the the they and them whereas folks my age we stumble over over that stuff and we miss identify is the community kind of forgiving of old

[00:20:10] people I got so I think it's one of those things where people sometimes I personally I can't speak for everybody but I personally am pretty chill with older folks I'm someone who I consider myself an educator when it comes to LGBTQ issues I know sometimes people get frustrated

[00:20:33] with older folks and I guess my message would be if somebody ever snaps like you know those those aren't my pronouns or something like that it's not at you usually it's because it's the

[00:20:43] 18th time today they've had to hear that I think it's the straw that broke the camels back more often than not if somebody snaps at someone for messing up pronouns or for misgendering it's it's

[00:20:56] usually not directed at just that person it's that frustration of I've gone through this so many times already this week this month is here just get it right and I don't think that it's malicious

[00:21:10] most of the time you know it's just one of those things where especially early on in a person's transition even just what social transition can be such a monumental burden on the trans person because everybody's coming to you saying well I'm doing my best and you're saying okay

[00:21:28] but this is really hard for me too it's not all about your struggle here okay that that could or something that that's sweet and also again we really appreciate you sharing because you are

[00:21:41] educating trust me you really are not just us but anyone out there who's listening it's something that we all need to be attentive to but we're all willing to learn most of us are

[00:21:52] there's a there's a there I've been in Russia but there's there's a very famous horror writer Poppy Z Bright is how the author presented when he was presenting his female has since transitioned to

[00:22:07] a male Billy Martin and he has been one of the leading people to help educate people like myself and my wife and because you know we were Poppy Z Bright fans for years you familiar with

[00:22:21] the author Jay Poppy Z Bright yeah all of them all the books that he's written still are under that name but they were leading they were leading back in the early eighties this idea of different

[00:22:36] gender identifications non-gender identifications all these things that were really alien to people back then we're much more accepting of some that stuff today because we were we're educated so being

[00:22:50] an educator you know Jay you say you're an educator I think that's the best thing to be in some ways oh you got a second poem you want him to read so yeah if you don't mind we would love to hear a second

[00:23:02] poem yeah how about the forest has no gender I can do that well I love that poem the forest has no gender it is divine which is to say contains divinity but also is an

[00:23:17] a rich pastry a chocolate a Claire or an expensive red wine the kind you sip slowly divine every piece of clothing I own feels like drag as in cross dressing slipping into and out of

[00:23:30] pronoun smoothest snake skin as in something changed the back of a rusted red pick up being scraped along a dusty country road maybe a body dead or it will be by the end of the drive or a

[00:23:42] long breath in through a filtered cigarette every inhale or a leaf a risk after the old woman with no eyebrows asks if I'm in the wrong bathroom I start carrying a knife in my left pants pocket

[00:23:54] only pissing in places where the shift manager knows my name but the forest is devoid of straight lines twisting trees echoing my spine curving streams like hands tracing my body in the

[00:24:07] half dark of not quite dawn it doesn't have to pretend that it's not an ecosystem that's brilliant that's just a great poem and again please visit redhorthpermications.com online to pick up a copy

[00:24:23] of a tangled lineage in my jail land though we will appreciate this old j and you'll even get an education in the meantime. If you don't mind me asking a little bit about Patrick your former professor

[00:24:37] how helpful and influential has he been in terms of supporting your work? Oh he's been honestly probably my biggest champion honestly we lost touch a little bit after undergrad I was in the middle of a bunch of moves and trying to find stable housing and getting

[00:24:56] married and all this we got back in touch probably a year or so ago we got back in touch and I don't even remember how we got back in touch now that I'm thinking about it but we just reconnected

[00:25:08] and we started getting coffee and just talking about poetry and it was he has so many so many great stories and so many just amazing experiences that he's had and his to his hugely influential on me I've read his book that you guys published probably a dozen times

[00:25:31] he's just we get coffee probably twice a month we get dinner with him and his wife my wife and I do he is a poetry champion I keep saying that one of these days he's really gonna retire but I don't

[00:25:42] know I have to tell you funny story about that I spoke within the other day because he's on our shortlist for editors and he told me he's like you know my wife is telling me I need to retire but

[00:25:55] I don't know if that's gonna happen you know what if this is what is enjoying in retirement I say you should do it sorry Reza yeah we just got coffee the other day and he told me a very

[00:26:04] similar story yeah trying to remember the name he's got one poem that just floors me every time and it's got a line in it a man never knows what he'll do if someone places a gun in his hands

[00:26:17] I just think is it violence is that the name of the poem I think it might be brilliant poem it's in fog at the mnathas battlefield so again available at redhaulcublications.com

[00:26:30] well I'll tell you he's a fan of ours we are a fan of yours and we want to thank you for your time today yeah thanks for thanks for showing up if not in person but on zoom yeah so

[00:26:47] from the wilds of Pennsylvania so thank you out there in podcast land for tuning in whatever day or time of the day or night that you're here I'm Robert can I put here with J. Orlando say

[00:27:00] good bye to the folks J well it was wonderful to be on here uh I hope everybody has a wonderful day and I just want to throw out there for any Indiana P.A. folks who might be listening my official

[00:27:10] book launch is on June 18th at spaghetti vendors five to eight p.m. so locals people in the Pennsylvania area think about coming up one last thing we really have to ask you to do is we always ask everybody

[00:27:21] to just repeat the name of our podcast can you say red pub pod? red hoc pod. you're listening to red pub pod. red pub pod thanks everyone. this is red pub pod. red pub pod. a podcast for right home publications. red pub. red hoc pod.