Former Flame Fridays - Deviant Bates
1/17/25
You were featured in Volume 2. What has happened since?
Honestly, it feels like my entire life has happened since. I dug myself out of the depression pit I was born into at all costs and got over my phase of menacing in the name of authenticity. I met the love of my life, lost him, then earned him back for real this time. I’ve been introduced to the most incredible possibilities for life, humanity, and even work. I’ve become blessed in the fullest.
California’s Burning Haibun
I miss you, Bakersfield. Boygold. Thing of my own
pale flesh. I hear there are fires in your state. I'm sure
that makes you think of me. Or maybe you're normal.
The fires are an omen that you too were meant to
burn. Which do you hate more: the fire that takes your
home or the heat that you used to fill it?
I miss my own pale flesh.
fires I'm sure make you
think of me. Or maybe fires are an omen
you were meant to burn. Which do you hate more:
the fire that takes or the heat you used ?
I own pale flesh fires
make you think of an omen
you were meant to burn
What/who inspired California's Burning Haibun? How does it fit into your style/body of work? Your haibun introduced and inspired me to write haibuns, and I want to thank you for that.
I had a couple inspirations for my California’s Burning Haibun.
To start, obvious credit to Torrin A. Greathouse and Frontier Poetry for creating and platforming this form of poetry. For those that don’t explicitly know the rules of a burning haibun feel free to check it out here.
Secondly, I would be forlorn to not admit this piece was entirely inspired by an ex. I am also able to say at this point in my life that this was easily the cruelest and least ethical thing I ever published. At the time, I figured publishing it in print would minimize the chances of them seeing it.
When I wrote it, though, I just wanted to write whatever the heck I wanted. I figured nobody knew me and I didn’t matter so I figured nobody would care what I wrote and submit. I was eager to try a new form and was submitting to journals with reckless abandon at the time. Up until this year (2024), I only wrote about myself and the people I loved or those that I felt wronged by. I had so much pain I needed to express and feel understood for. At the end of the day, though, I realized I’d rather be kind than right.
Letting go of that relationship by any means necessary allowed me to move on with my life.
Why Troublemaker Firestarter? What compels you to submit your work? Why be a writer at the end of the world?
It meant the world to me to have a publication willing to give my pain a home in a lifetime where I constantly felt I didn’t belong and was too much.
Today, I do less submitting of my work. I was sick of churning out poems I knew would publish.
To be a writer at the end of the world meant I had to succumb entirely to nihilism or find a better option. Instead of giving up on humanity, I discovered a love for community with an emphasis on peace, love, unity, and respect.
In these spaces, I’ve been encouraged to go back to writing for the public rather than the echo chamber of a literary community that was in constant competition rather than collaboration and mutual praise for work done.
Now, I am focused on writing for the communities that need affirmation. These poems are largely unpolished and currently only performed at live events. I find this allows me to reach the most people with the most uplifting message.
If there’s a publisher out there that’s interested in the more positive work I’m doing now, though, feel free to reach out!
Who are your current favorite writers?
My current favorites are Sterling-Elizabeth Arcadia. They always put out really poems with the perfect harmony of surreal language and cutting realism. I’ve deeply admired their work for many years now.
My other favorite is Mike Carroa, specifically Rituals Performed in the Absence of Ganymede from 11:11 Press, which is also one of my favorite presses.
Are you a troublemaker, a firestarter, a heartbreaker, a lucky duck, a devil, a terror, or sad and horny?
I was young and a menace.
I try to be a kind cunt these days.
Where can people find you 😈?
Check me out on Instagram for now @thedarlingknife.
You can also reach out via email at adbates15@gmail.com
What would you want the lovely readers of Substack to do?
Follow me on Insta and/or Facebook as I’m about to come out with some really exciting stuff in the next six months!!