We’ve had a policy at Kill Pretty ever since we started, No Meth Heads and No Poetry! It’s written above the arch entrance to the writers room and it reminds us of where we stand and our core beliefs as a company. I don’t really know how to read poetry and have had very few poems really make an impact. There seems to be a huge portion of DIY publications dedicated to poetry and it always seemed to me like a way to fill space. So when our favorite weirdo, Nashville, street photographer Richard Perkins told me he was going to release a book of poetry I made a audible *GULP*!

I’ve always been a huge fan of Richards work even when our tastes don’t exactly match up. He wears cowboy hats and loves backyard pro wrestling. He also admits to watching Titanic once a year (somehow I feel like it’s more than once?). These are the sewers of pop-culture I dare not enter. I’m more of a Garbage Pail Kids and JNCO jeans cave dweller. But we also have a ton of cross over and Richards book of poetry, Swan Princess, proves all of my suspicions incorrect.

The book itself is weird and scary and beautiful, kind of like paintings of sunsets by serial killers. You can see immediately Richard put his heart and his brains on the typewriter, letting it loose and not giving a fuck. His poems sometimes devolve into madness and other times there’s nothing but madness. Some are clean and clear and all of them call strange imagery similar to the photos he takes. There’s pop culture references everywhere and it really feels like I’m peeking into his brain and shuffling through his memories. I can picture him, at 4am, drunk off some hooch scribbling like a madman while Cha-Cha dances to a flamingo juggalo trap remix.

It’s brave as fuck to release a book of poetry. It’s almost unheard of to release one this beautiful and bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s cool to see someone taking an art form and making it different. Showing us what could be. Richard, along with Public Zoo Press, really made something special here and I recommend it, even to the freaks who have never read a book of poetry, it’s something to behold.

Order it here: https://publiczoo.press/swanprincess/

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