Are You Bad Enough?

Journal of Outsider Poetry assistant editor Dr. Henry Wolfsburg has been named an expert judge at the 2016 Outsider Poetry Slam of America debut bout on May 11th at the Outsider Poetry Depot in Rockford, Illinois. 

Poetry slam is an event where contestants read their poetry, and are score on a scale of 1-10 by an audience or celebrity judges. In this case our own Dr. Wolfsburg.

Eight teams will be competing in the OPSLA Slam: The Rockford Pages, The Minnoka Meter Maids, The Sheboygan Syllablists, The Chemung Shamans, The Kokomo Oralists, The Paducah Plain Speakers, The Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas, and the Podunk Polemicists. 

Tickets are free, but must be obtained in advance from EventBrite. other celebrity judges include members of Cheap Trick, and poet Irish Brian Kelly. 

Dr. Henry Wolfsburg is a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, and a licensed poetry therapist who has twenty years experience using poetry therapy in institutional settings, and is himself an Outsider Poet published in Caliban, Exquisite Corpse, The New Yorker, Long Shot, The Wormwood Review, and Yucca Sucka.

Rockford is a fitting local for the debut bout of a new poetry slam league as slam poetry was invented in Chicago in 1986 by Marc Smith, and Rockford is the home of Zombie Logic Press, the world’s most dangerous small press. 

The event will begin at 7 p.m. on the 11th of May with poets from all eight teams reading simultaneously until all but one of them runs out of breath. Then there will be some light refreshments, followed by more poetry recitations and finally a viewing of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. 

Interview With Outsider Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Our editor Dr. Millard Rausch interviewed Outsider Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg, who is also the publisher of Zombie Logic Press.

Dr. Rausch: How do you define Outsider Poetry?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: I don’t.

Dr. Rausch: Then how do you know it when you see it as editor of one of the most significant Outsider poetry publications, Zombie Logic Review?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: I don’t, really. I don’t know what oxygen looks like, either, but I rarely suffocate.

Dr. Millard Rausch: But seriously, the term Outsider, when applied to anything: music, art, poetry, politics, emanates an air of differentiating oneself from an orthodoxy, or not having a choice in being excluded from that orthodoxy. Do you agree?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: Sure. You’re the expert, but I see a lot of quite successful and entrenched practitioners in those art forms claiming Outsider status while simultaneously feeding at the trough of the orthodoxy, as you call it. In all seriousness, what it shows us is that to a certain extent we all feel like Outsiders, but in the more narrow definition I think we’re both talking about here, being an Outsider is less of a matter of self-identification, and more a matter of how culture, and society as a whole defines one, or tries to define one. Typically I take the phrase Outsider when applied to art, especially poetry, as pertaining to someone with mental illness, a lack of formal training, or creating in a very non-traditional or eccentric way, but not being self-conscious of that.

Dr. Millard Rausch: Seems like a big tent. But historically we haven’t seen many literary reviews, presses, or scholarly works dedicated to Outsider poetry.

Thomas L. Vaultonburg:  Well, I think a significant number of poets were always creating within the parameters of what we’d call Outsider poetry, there just wasn’t much of a community to identify with.

Dr. Millard Rausch: And now there is?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: No, not really. By definition, it’s difficult to establish any sort of community of people who are outsiders. I find that most of the poets I publish at Zombie Logic Review would qualify as outsiders, but aren’t necessarily comfortable being defined that way.

Dr. Millard Rausch: Because they shy away from thinking of themselves as mentally ill?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: Absolutely. The stigma is still very strong in American culture. I think people are attracted to the broader title outsider because almost all of us feel marginalized, and most of us have some sort of private battle we are fighting against this faceless oppressor, but when we get down to the narrower definition people actually don’t identify with that very much.

Dr. Millard Rausch: When did you find out about your mental illness, and what is your diagnosis? How has this influenced you as a writer and as an editor?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: I actually found out what my diagnosis was by accident. The psychologist left the door open when he was referring with the psychiatrist for a prescription, because it was standard issue to diagnose everyone with depression and get them on the Prozac at that time, but he referred to me as “A schizoid kid.” I had seen that term on the boxes of horror movies, and like most people confused it with Schizophrenia, when in reality it is a personality disorder. I probably would be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum nowadays.

As far as how this influenced my writing, I’d have to say I was always an observer of humanity, not a participant. I found it amusing, and bemusing, but I never felt like a human being. I find human behavior interesting, but I’ve never felt compelled to join in.

Dr. Millard Rausch: Do you think the explosion in diagnosis of autism will be significant in the way humans communicate with each other?

Thomas L. Vaultonburg: I’m not entirely convinced we didn’t always have this many individuals suffering from autism in society, and it’s a wonder how they managed to get along in the past. Sort of re-assuring in a way, but also sad. I do think the way we communicate with each other has been permanently altered, and will continue to evolve in a more compassionate and humane way. No more cookie cutter primers or Procrustean text books and one-size-fits-all guides for raising children who fit in and are well-adapted.

Dr. Millard Rausch: What are some of your goals with Zombie Logic Press?

With slam poetry being front and center lately due to the formation of a new Outsider Poetry slam league, The Journal of Outsider Poetry became curious if there were therapeutic benefits to performing one’s poetry on a stage. 

The concept of raising unconscious or barely conscious ideations and emotions to the surface, then finding a method such as transference is one of the classic concepts of Psychoanalysis, but could the act of externalizing one’s emotions through the creative process be a stand in for costly and time consuming analysis?

If the very act of creation itself is seen as therapeutic, then by extension, the performance of one’s creation could only offer further benefits, perhaps even a feeling of closing the door on an unpleasant memory or thought process. 

It is my understanding poetry slams can be the farthest thing from the hush hush poetry readings we might think of. In fact, these are often raucous events complete with clapping, vigorous cheering, or other demonstrative displays of approval if a work is deemed worthy by the audience. It is therefore the opinion of this writer and those he has conferred with that the Outsider Poetry slam league is a good thing. In fact, maybe clinicians nationwide will choose to field a team of their clients. 

If sporting events or intense exercise can have positive cathartic value, why not a good rant about the awkwardness of one’s teen years. This Outsider Poetry Slam might just catch on. Maybe it should even be televised, much like a sporting event, and millions can tune in and have their aggressions placated by a haiku rather than a kick to the head.

Editing a poetry journal is hard. Working with the mentally ill is hard. Editing a poetry journal created exclusively by the mentally ill while simultaneously fighting the entire psychiatric community is even harder, but that’s the situation my friend Dr. Henry Wolfsburg finds himself in almost daily.

One of the last Psychoanalysts personally trained by Carl Jung, Dr. Wolfsburg has integrated the concepts of the collective unconscious, archetypes, and complexes into a coherent hybrid with poetry therapy he uses to treat and often times cure the mentally ill. But because his methods are unorthodox, he has run into constant derision and criticism from the staid psychiatric community. 

I am here to say my friend Dr. Henry Wolfsburg is a talented clinician, a deep and thoughtful advocate for the mentally ill, and a caring and astute editor of outsider poetry. The new mental health community is reticent to accept any new techniques that do not involve psychopharmacological solutions. 

Anyway, I just dropped my first Tylenol on my second root canal in two weeks, so I don’t have much of a mood for all that kind of silliness. I call for the harassment of Dr. Wolfsburg and the wonderful Journal of Outsider Poetry to stop. Begin supporting those who believe mental illness is not a life sentence of slavery to medication and unsympathetic health care professionals. Those with mental health issues have just as much right and capacity to create as anyone else, and should be encouraged in clinical settings to express themselves and their thoughts and feelings. 

The next release from Midwest powerhouse Zombie Logic Press will be a collection of poetry by Outlaw noir poet Dennis Gulling titled The Blood Dark Sea. I know this because I am currently editing this book. Between major surgeries and dental appointments. 

It’s a return to poetry for Zombie Logic Press, and a first foray into Outlaw Poetry. Known for Outsider Poetry, Dada, and Surrealism, Zombie Logic is proud to be the first press to publish a full-length collection by one of the Midwest’s most accomplished small press poets that most people have never heard of.

So, what is Outlaw Poetry? What is Outsider Poetry. What is the difference? Well, Outlaw Poetry is written by writers who are openly defying or disregarding the establishment and their rules, and Outsider Poetry is created by those with no formal training or working with a mental illness or disability. 

I experienced sleep paralysis the first time when I was 18. What a horror. To be paralyzed and have the feeling an evil entity was standing there right next to you. 

I recently watched the documentary The Nightmare on Netflix, and although I didn’t feel I learned anything new or scientifically relevant about sleep paralysis, I did identify with some of the descriptions of the phenomenon. I believe whatever horrific entity we believe is visiting us depends primarily on our own inner fears. Some see aliens, some see demons, some see shadowy figures. The response seems uniform, though. Terror. 

Artist Jenny Mathews of Rockford Illustrating has captured that fear in this illustration, done for Halloween.

In the 1880′s Parisian Psychiatrist Pierre Charcon was at the forfront of a crest of demonic possession cases plaguing the mentally ill in his Montmarte Sanitarium. It is reported many of the possessed had come into association with the demonic entities through a therapy technique similar to the automatic writing games of the Surrealists. In a sense, it was an early example of poetry therapy says Dr. Henry Wolfsburg, editor of The Journal of Outsider Poetry.

Over the next few decades poetry therapy techniques were refined by such contributors as Karen Horning, Eric Fromeir, and Adler Planetarium. Today, unfortunately, poetry and poetry therapy is considered a dark remnant of a past too dark and revolting to talk about.

The specific wave of demonic possession that struck Paris in the 1880′s are a lesson that associations with the fell forces of the Universe may not be an altogether bad thing. Aside from the vomiting and eventual forfeiture of one’s soul, it can be argued these are a small price to pay for a few haikus. Confessional poetry, long thought to have evolved in the 1950′s with poets such as Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath literally began in the confessional booth on June, 12, 1881 when the demonically possessed Jaques Rabellaire began spontaneously composing spoken word poetry in the confessional. As well as being the first Confessional poet Rabellaire is also credited with being the first spoken word artists and to have laid down the groundwork for Hip Hop music when he went on a profanity-laden diatribe against his confessor.

You hear the sound of rock n roll as you pass by in the chilly night. But where is it coming from? You wander past, having stops to make before you return home to your warm, safe flat. The streets are not freeing your mind to work on your next book as you had hoped. All you can muster is revisions of stories past.

Suddenly, from the shadows, a hand grasps wildly at your shoulder. A man appears, clearly weakened by illness or disoriented by drink. He speaks, “I am famished. I haven’t had sup in days.”

Having known the ravages of hunger yourself you offer the man some money for food.

“Can’t keep food down. Never could,” he responds cryptically.

You offer to do whatever you can to help him.

“Bless you,” he says, as he digs his fangs into your neck and drinks deeply from your life essence.

Afterwards he hands you your wallet, which fell to the ground during the encounter. Noticing that you are the great horror writer R Chetwynd Hayes he greets you with renewed vigor, thanking you both for your blood and your stories.

You respond graciously, but ask him why a monster would have any use for horror stories.

He responds that everyone likes to read about themselves, their own kind. Expressing gratitude and guilt, he offers to take yo to a place where you can get material for your next book. Being completely blank you hesitantly accept his invitation.

“It’s just a short distance from here,” he says. It’s called The Monster Club. retracing your steps you realize you are heading towards the source of the music you heard earlier. You can swear you hear the band The Viewers playing a song you can faintly hear from a subterranean place.

You enter the Monster Club, and the 1981 movie of the same name directed by Roy Ward Baker and based on the book of the same name by R Chetwynd Hayes.

The Monster Club was episode 66 of Elvira’s Movie Macabre in 1985. It was also one of the 23 video release on Thriller Video hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. The soundtrack is legendary, containing performances by Star Wars composer John Williams, Alan Kawkshaw, UB40, Night, The Pretty Things, and B.A. Robertson.

“I never realized he was so talented. I second the nomination. A member of such a talented race can only be a credit to any Monster Club.”