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December 11, 2022
Jill McDonough's Playlist for Her Poetry Collection "American Treasure"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Jill McDonough's poetry collection American Treasure is a powerful examination of the cruelty that built the United States, of the humanity that has been diminished and the humanity that perseveres.
Clint Smith wrote of the book:
"What I love about Jill McDonough’s poems are the way that they capture the complexity and expansiveness of what it means to be human—how our time on this earth is beautiful and frustrating and often full of contradictions. Reading American Treasure feels like getting a beer with an old friend who is equal parts earnest and hilarious, someone who is full of empathy but who also calls it like they see it. American Treasure reminds me why McDonough is one of my favorite poets."
In her own words, here is Jill McDonough's Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection American Treasure:
American Treasure is my sixth book of poems, and I am still terrible at telling people what a book of poems is "about." But people still ask, so I fake it by talking about what some of the poems have in common.
In this book a lot of the poems are about going to sites of American atrocity that nobody else there recognizes as sites of American atrocity. Like going to Monticello or Trinity, the Atomic Testing site, and everyone around is oohing and ah-ing at original wainscoting or putting trinitite in their Dockers pockets.
I have spent a lot of time at these kinds of historic sites, and also a lot of time in carceral spaces, teaching writing to incarcerated men, women, and boys. I feel really lucky that I've gotten so spend so much time with people who have so much going on; it helps me get my priorities right. And be able to see American treasures in the right spots.
Here is a playlist of American treasures to go along with American Treasure, with a geographical scope from Toronto to Barbados. You know, The Americas. I was going to start off with "Molotow Cocktail Party," by Vivi Bach and Dietmar Schönherr, because everything should start off with "Molotow Cocktail Party," by Vivi Bach and Dietmar Schönherr. I could make an argument for it being an American song, but it would take me a while, so I'm leaving it off.
Take Five
Dave Brubeck, from Concord, CA
If you go to Mount Vernon, George Washington's house, or even just to their website, you can see George Washington's dentures. They are all kinds of messed up. The first poem in American Treasure, "Zero Slave Teeth," talks about how if you mention on social media that George Washington had the teeth of enslaved workers in his dentures, people lose their minds. When you are a woman, one of the ways people lose their minds is to call you "a stupid cunt" on your dad's Facebook page. This happened to my poor sweet dad, who used to play this song all the time. When I was little I made fun of it for not being a real song, but now I love it.
Needle and the Damage Done
Chelsea on Fire, from Boston
"Alone in Utah" is a poem about doing a good job teaching even when you are depressed. I had a fellowship in Salt Lake City for a semester and I spent those months away from Josey, which was terrible. In lots of ways Salt Lake City was great! I loved my students, and I could walk to the dollar movie theatre and get buttered popcorn with Kim Johnson, and I had a lot of questions about Mormons that I was able to answer there. But I missed Josey a lot. When I met her she was in this band, Chelsea on Fire, and I spent a lot of time those first few years at rock shows, selling merch at Meow Mix in New York, or The Middle East in Cambridge, or underground clubs in Germany. They played this song as an encore most nights, and it still makes my eyes water.
Motorbike
Leon Bridges, from Atlanta, GA
"In Praise of Black Boys on Motorbikes in Boston" is a poem about these guys I love to see around town--I saw one of them by himself on my street the other day and he waved at me like he was Santa in a parade. Maybe there aren't that many fifty year old white ladies who are starstruck when they see these guys, or maybe they are waving at old ladies all over town, but they are so beautiful and graceful and brave it feels lucky to see them. I smile and wave and put my hand on my heart so they know how I feel. They kneel or stand on their seats, pop wheelies. Sometimes they pop wheelies at me. We are lucky to live in their town.
This is America
Childish Gambino, from Edwards Air Force Base, CA
A lot of these poems are trying to reckon with what it means to be American--how we fetishize freedom while incarcerating more people than anyone else, in a country not only built on slavery but often refusing to even talk about that.
This is a good song for the second section of the book, which starts with a poem called "Freedom" that quotes a lot of my incarcerated students defining what freedom means to them, and me making fun of the people who think it means eagles and lower taxes. "They really mean/LOOK OVER HERE, AWAY FROM ALL THE SLAVERY/WE DID, AWAY FROM ALL THE JAIL!"
I'll Eat You, I'll Drink You
Woody Guthrie, from Okemah, OK
"The Serious Downer" is a poem about me eating Josey's corpse, about how I love her so much, am so crazy about her body, that I want to devour her, dead or alive. I think this wack-ass song by Woody Guthrie is about that feeling. It's from this album for kids called Songs to Grow On For Mother and Child but I'm like uh-huh, sure it is, Woody, nice try.
No Scrubs
TLC, from Atlanta, GA
I often like to point out that Josey is significantly older than I am. She's also an old school butch lesbian, and had to give me a crash course in lesbian culture when we firstngot together. We still watch The Hunger like once a month and quote it to each other all the time. My contributions to Josey's cross cultural education included me introducing her to this song. In the poem "Testicles at Trinity, the Atomic Testing Site," We sing it while we drive around New Mexico the one day a year the Trinity Atomic Testing Site is open. I loved that trip. We ate so many green chile cheeseburgers. And it was not enough.
My friend John Gertsen tells me this scrub is called chamisa, which is a beautiful word I would have included in the poem if I'd known it at the time. It sounds like a nightgown.
Work (feat. Drake, from Toronto)
Rihanna, from Barbados
There are a bunch of poems in here about this one incarcerated kid that I worked with for a couple years, because he was hilarious and tender and smart and funny and I loved him and he was deported and I miss him. "Donuts in Kidjail" is about him, and "I Ain't Afraid of Nothing About This Test." He loved Rihanna, and whenever I told him to get to work he'd sing this song.
One time I had him annotate and summarize and analyze Danez Smith's "Dinosaurs in the Hood," and then write his own poem about a movie he wanted to make. And he wrote this awesome poem about a movie where Jill McDonough leads a gang of lesbian assassins, taking rich bad guys' money and giving it to the poor. He said Rihanna would play me, and my weapon of choice would be my pit bull. I do not have a pit bull. But now I kind of want one. And also I have never been so flattered in my life.
Whatever You're Doing (Something Heavenly)
Sanctus Real, from Toledo, OH
When I was driving around Utah I loved to listen to Christian Rock. This is the best song I heard. This is the chorus:
Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
But I'm giving in to something Heavenly
But it's definitely not about butt stuff, so just quit laughing, you dirt birds.
Hold Up
Beyoncé, from Houston, TX
There are a bunch of poems in here where I am dealing with my own rage. Deciding it is funny is a good way to deal with it. Like, whatever enraged you is so absurd it can also crack you up. Even if it's American kids being poisoned by their drinking water in Flint, or the men who want to tell me Sally Hemings wanted it. Beyoncé is really good at that particular kind of absurdist rage. Like, I'm furious; but instead of letting that frustrate me to tears I am laughing at you, cheating husband or stupid country, because you are ridiculous. And she looks so happy in the video, beating the shit out of cars and a fire hydrant with a baseball bat, it makes the women watching her happy, too. I want to see more women joyful in their rage. It's fucking hot, and there is always plenty of rage to go around.
My Funny Valentine
Chet Baker, from Yale, OK
When Billy Sothern and I were first becoming friends we spent a lot of time at a bar called The Pegu Club in New York. Once this song came on and he did a sudden and delightful imitation of Chet Baker, like just a crazy good imitation of Chet Baker singing this song, while sitting at corner bar seats, the best bar seats, with me. We were probably drinking Embury sidecars, or brandy crustas. Or an agricole daiquiri with a chartreuse float. Something beautiful and ephemeral and delicious. Billy hanged himself September 30. I'm still hurt and mad and frustrated about it, and I miss him and I love him very much. "St. Ailred" is one of a few love poems I wrote him. We should write more love poems for our friends.
Africa
Toto, from Los Angeles, CA
When Josey was a bartender at Drink they'd play this song at last call. Now I go to bed at like 8:30 and I never go out because there is a plague on, but in another life, back when I was working on this book, I would hear this song, which always cracked me up, and know that the rest of the bar patrons were going to clear out. And John and Misty and Scott and Josey would call Lights Up! and I'd sit there drinking and writing emails or poems or grading papers, the only person on my side of the bar, until they cleaned up and burned the well and counted the money and it was time to go home. With Josey. Who is significantly older than I am. And we'd watch The Hunger and make out and drink cocktails until dawn.
Jill McDonough is the author of Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008), Oh, James! (Seven Kitchens, 2012), Where You Live (Salt, 2012), Reaper (Alice James Books, 2017), and Here All Night (Alice James Books, 2019). The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University’s Prison Education Program for thirteen years. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at UMass-Boston.
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