Former Flame Fridays - nat raum
10/25/24
c-ptsd as the matter splatter galaxy after Super Mario Galaxy the pavement, all speckled with space and scratchy marble, will flee at a moment’s notice beneath my boots, a humming circle of solid ground shifting to knock me into void, the place where i am always tumbling and digging my nails into paperthin air as anchors. i was warned to watch my step, dodged disappearing puddles of plinking matter splatters as i traversed memory after memory and fell into the blackhole bowels awaiting me at the edge of the galaxy. gravity pulls different at the bottom of the cavernous gape, pulls you like spacetrash into the maw of remembering, the pit within yourself that you buried in sinew until it was time for excision. once ejected from the body, it becomes the unsteady ground on which i tread lightly, the patterns i trace with steady eyes to determine where it may be safe to step again.
Welcome to Former Flame Fridays! On this blog, we will highlight someone we have published. Today, we have nat raum, editor of fifth wheel press.
TF: You were featured in volumes 5 and 777; what has happened since?
nr: Between Volume 5 and 777, I finished my MFA. Since Volume 777, I've been working on finishing a hybrid collection, which I'm now in the process of revising and starting to send out.
barbe de papa i didn’t know i was queer when he was breaking up with me, or i did, but not like this. i was queer as in sexism is the answer for the only type of nonmonogamy he would allow me. now i’m queer as in fuck that, my rays can stretch so much further than his mind can imagine, queer as in i don’t understand how i used to live life without cotton candy and baby blue blinders, as in if i weren’t trans, i’d probably be dead already. i didn’t know i was queer when i was elbows deep in the uproar that was a misapplied girlhood. now i know i am pastel royalty. i am hot pink and royal blue comingling in a purple paradise. i am a flurry of bisexual lighting and i am a conduit of trans joy. i am wisps of sugarfloss in the evening sky as much as i am the sky itself, as much as i am the stars which emerge to remind: it is just today that you feel so small. tomorrow you will expand gloriously.
TF: What/who inspired the art of 777 and the c-ptsd as the matter splatter galaxy and barbe de papa? How does it fit into your style/body of work?
nr: The art style you see in 777 is a process I created when I was partially hospitalized in 2021. At the time, it was a way of reconnecting to my creative practice, which had very much fallen by the wayside. Essentially, I start with any photograph and layer effects and overlay onto it in Photoshop Express until it's an entirely new composition.
The poems are each from different manuscripts I wrote in 2023; "c-ptsd as the matter splatter galaxy" was written as part of an unpublished book about family, Baltimore, and childhood, while "barbe de papa" is part of my forthcoming collection this book will not save you (dogleech books 2024).
TF: Why Troublemaker Firestarter? What compels you to submit your work? Why be a writer at the end of the world?
nr: I'm here for any queer space that strives to break the status quo. I think these kinds of spaces are absolutely essential to surviving as a marginalized creative at the end of the world. I definitely send my work to places that have what some people would call "clout," but my heart will always be with DIY pubs who want to set new standards.
TF: Who are your current favorite writers?
nr: Danez Smith is an obvious one. I've also been really inspired by Maggie Nelson's Bluets lately. Finally, I recently read a piece by Bazil Bradford that has been rattling around in my brain for days now.
TF: Are you a troublemaker, a firestarter, a heartbreaker, a lucky duck, a devil, a terror, or sad and horny?
nr: Forever sad and horny.
TF: Where can people find you?
nr: On the web at natraum.com, or on socials @gr8earlofhell.
TF: What would you want the lovely readers of Substack to do?
nr: Preorder my book and subscribe to my Substack newsletter (natraum.substack.com)
Thank you for reading! If you have been published by us and would like to be next, email us at Troublemakerfirestarter@gmail.com. Thank you to nat for being speedy and for sharing their work with us.