Boogeyman
Julián Martinez
Julián Martinez is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His first chapbook, This Place Is Covered Head to Toe In Shit, is out Summer 2024 with Ghost City Press. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago.
Why Taylor Loved It:
The prose form for this content is working so well. There’s a narrative but everything starts to slip into everything else, meanings overlapping and forging new connections, sound work slipped in almost unnoticed in the block of text.
The image work in this poem is really what won me over. When it got to the image of Julián as a child stomping on worms, and God washing their blood away, I literally had to stop for a second to collect myself. The way my heart feels while reading a line about a kid stomping on worms saying feel my wrath that’s followed by a powerful examination of divine punishment is hard to express really but there’s a lot of tender there, and a lot of hurt and rage too.
(If you don’t normally listen to the audio version of poems, I’d highly recommend you listen to Julián’s here. There’s an intensity in the language and sound work in this poem that really shines when you pair it with the audio.)
And of course, I'm a sucker for a sports poem, and a god poem. And Julián gave me both. The extrapolation from WWE to religion as violent facades is powerful. Looking up to childhood figures as Gods and wondering what power you might have. Or what power they have, that you don’t.
Interview:
What, in general, is your writing process like?
I tend to write things longhanded and very quickly, just kinda word-vomiting on the page then editing immediately after (or as soon as I can if I'm in transit or in public or whatever). If I don't feel like the piece is sticking its landing, I'll start copying what I wrote on a new notebook page from the beginning, then try something different along the way, see where that takes it, then repeat until satisfied or sick of it. Then I'll type up what I just wrote onto my laptop and make tweaks and cuts from there. The downside to writing in these short bursts is I lose interest in ideas or pieces pretty soon if left unfinished. The upside is it's an exciting little rush of energy.
I have not stopped thinking about that image of you crushing worms since I read your poem, how did you come up with that?
It's true! I was a worm crusher. To quote John C. Reilly in Talladega Nights, "there's no shame in that." I mean, Catholic guilt for sure. I just knew I wanted to write a poem about Boogeyman and the visceral disgust I had for him and his worms as a kid, and while writing, it brought out the connection to my bad habit of taking shit out on these poor creatures. It was so gleefully evil. It probably felt even better to actually be the Boogeyman, though.
Why did you choose Team Taylor?
I chose Team Taylor because Taylor said she loves sports poems and I've been on a real sports poem kick. Taylor also said she loves religious iconography in poems, and this one's loaded with that. I didn't realize this when I submitted, but this is the same Taylor whose poem I accepted for a guest submission call I did for HAD a few weeks ago. Go read "Coach," it's an amazing piece!