Bio: Parker Tettleton is his own form of Google. He thinks & is grateful to not know. There is more thinking & not knowing here. He doesn’t think but knows he is grateful for you, & the fifth line is what you make of it.
ME: They used to call Bukowski the king of the small presses. I think that can sort of describe what you’re doing these days. Do you know how many poems/stories/micro things you have published online? Part two to this first question: If you had to choose one piece you published online, which one would it be?
PT: I may be a kink of the small presses. I checked my blog’s list of published work & stopped counting after two hundred pieces. I could choose any number of them but one that I feel is instrumental in a foundation-sort-of-way to the shaping of my current manuscript is Ways I Used To Celebrate, which was published by elimae last March.
ME: Cocaine. Why?
PT: It seemed like the quickest way to put her in my mouth. Or maybe it was the Xanax triplets, however many beers.
ME: You have a love life blooming. What do you look for in a lady? Is it the art student in her or the hula hooping? How important is the skill of hula hooping in a potential mate?
PT: I look to be readily uncomfortable. I look to be surprised because I never know what I want after or before. I look for the art student & hula hooper in everyone. Every skill is as important as whatever importance means at the time.
ME: There is a Mitch Hedberg joke that takes place during an interview. The interviewer says to Mitch, Where do you see yourself in five years? & Mitch responds with, Celebrating the fifth year anniversary of you asking me this question. (It’s funny, I promise.) But I would like to know where you see yourself in five years? Maybe ten?
PT: In five years I might be able to answer. In ten I’ll just answer.
ME: You are now on the Publications Committee at Vox Press. Can you tell us a little about Vox Press and what you do on this committee? Is Vox Press currently reading? If so, what type of manuscripts are you, as part of the Publication Committee, looking for? Were you originally BlazeVOX and then after the recent Internet orgasm, quietly erased the first part of your name? Are you going to charge me $250.00 for this interview?
PT: Vox Press, Inc. was birthed by Louis E. Bourgeois & Oxford American Editor Jimmy Pitts in 2004. I became aware of the press in the summer of 2008, when I took a poetry class under Louis at Ole Miss (made a B). I’ll be reading & discussing manuscripts as part of this committee. The words WE MUST BECOME ABSOLUTELY MODERN adorn our homepage among other places – send fuck all because we’re wide open. We’re no relation to anyone we’re not related to. I deposited something like $3,700 today & you’re good (I can’t say safe) in more ways than one.
ME: How long have we known each other? I believe you were the one that introduced me to Kat Dixon, even if it was on accident. So, this is a question and a thank you: thank you for getting me laid many, many times.
PT: We’ve known each other before we knew each other before Kat Dixon said Oh Lord. Something had to happen & something always does. If I say thank you back do we feel satisfied or did we just cancel shit out? Words are my only type of math.
ME: Besides me, which writer(s) should we be really excited about right now?
PT: I’m really excited to not know a definitive one. Kim Chinquee has been my favorite for several years. I hear prominent, eclectic echoes from Michael J. Bible, Trey Jordan Harris, Thomas Patrick Levy, the Kat Dixon, & Prathna Lor, to name a few. & in the spirit of death, I’m currently reading Beckett’s Molloy & trying to avoid becoming a Pomeranian. That guy.
ME: Dream blurb. Who’s it from?
PT: Barry Hannah.
ME: Do you want to come over and pet our dog?
PT: I’ll pet the trio heavily.
ME: Who is your favorite character on Felicity? (Don’t say you’ve never seen the show. If you haven’t, look up IMDB and make something up.)
PT: I made something like Meghan.
ME: Do you ever think Muumuu House will publish a book by me?
PT: I think you were born Hawaiian & we all have a chance at things we are neutral about.
