Uncategorized | Erica Mena

Goodbye Drunken Boat, Hello Anomaly!

May 18, 2017 by Erica Mena

[Note: All documents quoted in this post are public record, comprising parts of the public non-profit corporation’s minutes, filed with the New York Secretary of State in accordance with state law and the corporation’s bylaws. All minutes of the corporation are available for public review upon request.] This is a post I really didn’t want to have to write. I believe firmly in restorative justice, and the possibility for healing and recovery within a community, despite harm done. But I also […]

Categories: Publishing, Uncategorized • Tags: abuse, Anomalous, Anomalous Press, anomaly25, drunken boat, drunken boat journal, ravi shankar, ravi shankar arrests, ravi shankar poet

Heavy Metal

April 21, 2017 by Erica Mena

I’m going to write a bit about something pretty personal here, which is a tad unusual. As many of my friends know, I became extremely ill in late September / early October of 2016. I had just moved back across country, from San Francisco to Providence, to teach Experimental Poets of Color at Brown. I loved being back at Brown, on the east coast, near family and friends. I was also teaching a poetry workshop for the super-rad Frequency Writers, and […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: copper toxicity, health, iud, iud copper toxicity, medical sexism, pain, personal, women, women's health

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Accountability, Harassment, and White Male Fragility

June 20, 2016 by Erica Mena

I just created a label in my editor’s gmail for DrunkenBoat: Harassment. I know from experience in other leadership positions that this is a label I will have to use all too often, even in the supposedly progressive field of literary arts. This is a label I need to have because I need to keep records of the men (it’s always men) who can’t handle rejection (par for the course in literary publishing), or can’t handle correction, or can’t handle […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: drunken boat, feminism, fragile masculinity, male privledge, male tears, toxic masculinity

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Cat Lorem Ipsum

June 13, 2016 by Erica Mena

See owner, run in terror lick yarn hanging out of own butt jump off balcony, onto stranger’s heador meowing non stop for food so swat turds around the house. Spit up on light gray carpet instead of adjacent linoleum climb a tree, wait for a fireman jump to fireman then scratch his face, and rub face on owner ignore the squirrels, you’ll never catch them anyway chase ball of stringswat turds around the house. Stares at human while pushing stuff […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: book design, cats

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My Week In Books

March 13, 2015 by Erica Mena

Featherbone. from Featherbone: Searshut your throat & open soundless: again—it pierces your back— spins—you lurch and plummet— light is: to blame you: unother. The light is already bleaching your veins metasomatized —blooming in the cracks the fissures. This is my book, Featherbone. It’s a cyborg feminist retelling of Icarus, driven by compound neologisms. The cover art is by Wangechi Mutu, titled “Love’s a Witch, Orfeo’s Underworld Coronation for Euridice,” 2006. Mutu is a Kenyan-born artist and sculptor who resides in […]

Categories: Publishing, Uncategorized • Tags: Anomalous Press, arrowsmith press, askold melnyczuk, cole swenson, collier nogues, drown/sever/sing, drunken boat, erica mena, featherbone, frank andre jamme, ian hatcher, jorie graham, la presse, lina maria ferriera cabeza-vanegas, melissa green, poetry, the all-new, the ground i stand on is not my ground, to the secret

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The Future of the Book

January 30, 2015 by Erica Mena

I had a really interesting conversation a few days ago with someone I met on an airplane. I don’t normally speak to strangers in public, as an introvert it actually sort of terrifies me. But something compelled me (technically, my window seat and three teas) to start a conversation with him, and I’m so glad I did. Because it turned out he was extremely interested in the future of reading and the future of the book. It got me thinking […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: elit, future book, future of the book, hybrid books

That Time I Had To Look Up "thot"

January 27, 2015 by Erica Mena

I’ve been called many things by many people. I’ve also been called many things by many people who think I’m this Erica Mena, and not the Erica Mena I actually am. It’s because I have a googleganger. And it so happens that, though I am slightly older than her and so have our name on most social media platforms (from before I even knew about her), she is much more “famous.” I use the scare-quotes because she’s a reality TV […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: erica mena, feminism, feminist, googleganger, reality tv, slut-shaming

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What's in a name? If it's The Eternonaut, it's a lot.

November 7, 2014 by Erica Mena

The graphic novel I translated a few years ago is in production, and coming out with Fantagraphics (swoon) next year. It’s an amazing work by the phenomenal Argentine author Héctor Germán Oesterheld, illustrated by the incredible Francisco Solano López. I’m so excited to see it brought out in English, I can barely contain myself. And for the most part, I’ve received some really great feedback on the translation and my advocacy for the work. But there’s this thing that has come up […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: el eternauta, francisco solano lopez, graphic novel, hector german oesterheld, literary translation, the eternonaut, translation

5 Things That Chester Could Be Listening To That Would Be Way, Way Worse For Us

August 29, 2014 by Erica Mena

We have a new downstairs neighbor. Well, actually, we’re his new upstairs neighbors. Chester. Chester has lived in our building for almost twenty years. Chester is a cab driver in San Francisco, who is almost always at the lovely across the street bar for happy hour. Chester has excellent taste in classic jazz. How do I know that? Because our building used to be sort of a tenement, with all the cheap flimsy materials and thin walls and floors that […]

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Moving Wrap-up (I Hope): aka, The Move Part 4

June 21, 2014 by Erica Mena

[Part 1 & Part 2 chronicle the unbelievable nightmare of moving with Fidelity Moving Group. Part 3 has some advice and things I wished I had thought of before moving.] We finally arrived, the day before what was supposed to be our delivery date, in San Francisco, exhausted, sun-burnt, stressed out, and at night. We knew that we should expect a strange, overstuffed couch sitting in our apartment, in addition to what we hoped was all of our own stuff. And there it […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving nightmare, moving scam

Erica Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Goodbye Drunken Boat, Hello Anomaly!

Heavy Metal

Accountability, Harassment, and White Male Fragility

Cat Lorem Ipsum

My Week In Books

The Future of the Book

That Time I Had To Look Up "thot"

What's in a name? If it's The Eternonaut, it's a lot.

5 Things That Chester Could Be Listening To That Would Be Way, Way Worse For Us

Moving Wrap-up (I Hope): aka, The Move Part 4