S2E13: Jasper Ceylon
In this special, unique, episode of The Black Ibis Social Club, poet provocateur Jasper Ceylon joins us to reveal the debut of his hilarious project. So once again, brew yourself a dark cup of coffee, maybe drip a splash of whiskey in there, and enjoy another episode of the best culture and lit podcast on Substack.Black Ibis Social Club is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Jasper, a certified s**t-lord, is debuting his latest project Echolalia Review: An Anti Poetry Collection, a poetry chapbook that is in reality a social experiment and deep commentary on the state of the literary establishment. Jasper, spent the last few years submitting and getting published a collection of poems under various ridiculous pen names and characters. Of course, these poems would have never been published under his own name because of his immutable birth characteristics, but submitted under the publicly preferred and favored identities they all got snatched up. Echolalia is a collection of all these published pieces, the jokes, the absurdity, and the methodology of this bit of punk rock anti-establishment art. You can read his own description of the project on his substack.Throughout 2023 and 2024, I assumed a series of “attractive” pen names and as these personas sent upwards of fifty poems to English-language poetry journals the world over. Journals that ranged from respected, long-standing fixtures in the poetry landscape, to green-as-artificial-turf indie start-ups with one-man/woman/etc. editorial teams. These poems featured material that was farcical, inconsistent, inaccurate, prejudiced, and, in some cases, outright nonsensical, spanning every kind of style and subject matter seen in contemporary poetry. Some of these pieces read seriously, with minor tip-offs (e.g., “Decolonizing a stray” [The Bitchin’ Kitsch]); others contain glaring parodic elements or nonsense phrasings (e.g., “yah jah gah hah” [Tofu Ink Arts Press]; “w/stern man @ foundation” [Arteidolia]), but, fundamentally, these pieces all had one thing in common: They were trash.The worst part: Every single poem got published.Echolalia is hilarious, I laughed so hard a so much of the absurdity, and tonight’s episode is a blast. But I have to say, there is a bittersweet sadness to it because the stupidity of the situation really paints the world of contemporary poetry in a bad light. Of course, for all we know Jasper himself is just an Artificial construct, a creation of some deep internet intelligence, defrauding all of us gullible rubes.If you enjoy The Black Ibis Social Club please take the time to like, follow, and comment on here and also across multiple platforms. You can listen to The Black Ibis Social Club on every major platform and also use the RSS feed to listen on any and all podcast streaming apps. In order to keep this up and continue to provide some of the best content on this side of Substack we need to get the word out far and wide, so please like, share, subscribe not only here but on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. If you enjoy these conversations and are excited about all the excellent stuff planned for the future take the time and share a link as far and wide as possible. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blackibissocialclub.substack.com/subscribe