i*
30
FEBRUARY 18, 2011
• words •
Sad Poems
Explode the
Heart
W W W .JU ST0U T.C O M
Artist Philip Iosca releases
his debut book of poetry
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Roberta Flack’s “Ballad of The Sad Young
Men” exists in a strange Internet black hole.
Flack’s version of the song, for which Philip
Iosca has named his debut book of poetry,
does not exist on YouTube. A 30-second
sample can be heard on Myspace, of all places.
To hear Flack’s full version, which is recom­
mended, one must purchase or borrow it.
“What she talks about in the song really
related to what I found myself interested in
when I edited the poems into a book,” says
Iosca.
Artist-turned-author Iosca sits down in a
small corner of a downtown café. It is Valen­
tine’s Day and he is dressed comfortably in a
black hooded sweatshirt. Splotches of white
paint speckle his hoodie, the image of the art­
ist in the midst of creation. The black garb—
and black coffee, for that matter—seems ap­
propriate on this holiday, when he ruminates
on Rallad of The Sad Young Men.
“The song talks about all these sad young
men, sitting at the bar, drinking at the bar,
looking at the stars. And it’s really about all
the sad young men growing old. I was inter­
ested in this moment of youth, when you stop
becoming a child and become an adult. I’ll be
29 years old next month, but I still don’t feel
like an adult. But I’m losing my hair. My gums
arc receding. My body is already starting to
decline. I guess that means I’m an adult,
though I don’t feel like one.”
If anything, Iosca’s work, both visual and
written, is evidence of maturity and gravitas.
In the introduction to Ballad of The Sad Young
Men, established Portland-based poet Mat­
thew Dickman describes the contents as “ex­
plosions of the heart.”
“They’re short poems. I have a short atten­
tion span,”says Iosca. “I think that’s why I like
poetry a lot. You can pick it up. You don’t have
to start at the beginning.”
The last time we spoke was for his self-
published hook The Rise and Fall of My Roman
Empire, a love story told in three chapters. A
single copy still exists for sale at indie book­
store Printed Matter in New York City.
Yet, for having published two hooks, Iosca
resists titles like “writer” or “poet.”
“I don’t know that I necessarily consider
myself a writer,” explains Iosca. “I feel that
writing is part of my art practice. I think
maybe more than the poems that I like, that a
lot of artists that I like use text. Jenny Holzer
is someone whose work I have already loved
who uses text in a beautiful way.”
Iosca defines himself primarily as a visual
/VAYNE BUND
BY WAYNE BUND
“ I don’t know that I necessarily
consider myself a writer. I feel that
writing is part of my art practice.
I think maybe more than the poems
that I like, that a lot of artists that I
like use text.”
— PHILIP IOSCA
artist. In the last year, he has exhibited work at
PDX Across The Hall, 12128, Car Hole Gal­
lery and Gallery Homeland. The Rise and Fall
of My Roman Empire was entirely self-pub­
lished: He wrote, made and produced the
book himself—what was practically an art
object in its presentation. It was Iosca’s goal to
make Ballad of The Sad Young Men in the same
fashion hut, he shares, another creative pro­
cess—remodeling the historic building in
which he lives—was proving equally tedious:
“I ran out of energy. I didn’t want to deal with
it.”
In the meantime he asked Matthew Dick­
man to look over the collection of poems; they
had planned to collaborate on an earlier proj­
ect, hut the venture fell through.
“I’m a twin, and he’s a twin. His twin
brother is also a writer, they’re both poets,”
says Iosca.
Once Dickman gave Iosca his seal of ap­
proval, Iosca turned to Matthew Stadler of
Publication Studio. A local DIY print shop,
Publication specializes in producing works of
artists and writers. Each book is printed on
demand in house.
The genesis of Ballad of The Sad Young Men
took place primarily in the solitude of Ore­
gon’s Cascade Mountains.
“I applied to the Caldera Residency for
writing, which is funny because I don’t con­
Philip Iosca at Publication Studio’s
February 15 Publisher’s Lunch
sider myself a writer,” Iosca reiterates, “mostly
to create this document that I could reference
for myself as an artist.” Iosca brought some 20
odd journals he had written in over the years
and “put it into one cohesive document. I had
enough time while I was there to go back
through the document and create poems out
of it.
Caldera is in Central Oregon,” he contin­
ues. “It’s remote. It’s snowy. I mostly am
spending all day alone in my cabin. I brought
my computer with me, so I just listened to my
iTunes on shuffle. No telephone. No Internet.
No television. Just some music and a snowy
cabin and me. Roberta Flack’s ‘Ballad of The
Sad Young Men’ came on and it kind of
clicked.”
So has the book’s official release. Ballad of
The Sad Young Men was launched February 15
as part of Publication Studio’s “Publisher’s
Lunch” series. A themed “all black lunch” ca­
tered by Holocene’s Jeremy Larter consisted
of a four-course meal in which the majority of
food was black, or shades of hue between
black and white. Portland’s intelligentsia—
among them Tom Spanbauer, Kristan Ken­
nedy, Rebecca Iosca (Philip’s twin sister) and
Jack Barron—provided readings of select
poems.
On the success of his latest project, Iosca
muses, “It’s funny [that] it seems easier in this
town to publish a book of poems than to get a
show somewhere.” JM
B allad
of
T he S ad Y oung M en can be pur­
chasedfrom Publication Studio, 717 Ankeny St.
Physical copies are $15, a DRM-free e-book is
$10 via publicationstudio.bz or 503-360-4702.