Broetry: A Chat w/ Broet Laureate Brian McGackin

The Broet Laureate Brian McGackin

“I’m such an ass/ I must admit/ I’d completely forgotten it/ Convenience stores don’t sell booze here/ Now how the hell will we get lit?”

Broetry promised to take me through the adventures of “Broet Laureate” Brian McGackin, from his high school graduation to his quarter-life crisis. And, dude– he went all the way, man. As a 20-something who is the same age as Brian, it was an enlightening and hilarious first-person peep hole look into the lives of my male friends and former flames over the past decade. And according to this collection, they are all quite the broets.

If you want to know what men think about in their 20s, I can summarize it up in, arguably, three words: “processed food” and “sex”– in no particular order. To bros and broettes alike, Broetry eloquently sheds light on those levels (and often hilarious, obvious lack of) and how they serve as the foundations of his experiences.

So, one of my favorite themes in this book is your relationship with food– mostly food you heated up in a microwave, or unwrapped. You have an ode to frozen pizza, a frighteningly succinct broem about ‘Cleaning Off My George Foreman Grill’ and three pages (!!!) of Walt Whitman-y brose preaching the modern day evolution of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. (I feel obligated to mention that ‘Ramen’ made it into the Index of this book).

There are arguably more mentions of food in here than there are of individual people. Were you just stoned to the bejeezus in college, or do you really just hate cooking? And as a quarter centurion, what has become of your relationship with two step meals?

Sometimes I’m really ambitious and cook steak and pork chops and all kinds of adult dinners using stoves and kitchenware, and sometimes I just can’t be bothered. When I was writing Broetry, in particular, I was frequently lost in my work, would sometimes forget that I was even supposed to be eating at all. Not only that, but I was dirt poor and could hardly afford much more than cereal and Ramen.

I love eating.

I’m glad you brought up the Index. The Index is actually my favorite thing about the book. It’s five pages long, but almost none of it serves as a functioning index. It’s one massive inside joke, but there’s so much in there that anyone can be a part of it. I defy anyone to see if they can figure out what it all means.

As a broette, I super enjoyed your commentary on pop-culture. Particularly O Captain! My Captain America! and When Patrick Stewart Rules the World.

Please tell me more about your process in picking which of your favorite hobbies, comics and movies you featured.

My process is random. I write everyday, so there’s always new content being generated, but there are certain poems that I know are going to be more ambitious than others, and I often let those simmer for a while before I write them out. “Oh Captain! My Captain America!” was like that. I had the title for weeks, and I knew what I wanted to do with it, but I let it stew for a while until I was finally ready to get it down. I have a tendency to write things out to completion in one quick sitting, so I usually wait until I know exactly what I want. Of course there are still surprises, and editing later on, but for the most part this poem was one of my more successful in terms of the execution of my original premise.

“When Patrick Stewart Rules the World,” on the other hand, was almost the exact opposite. I just had a spark one day and wrote it up. I had no idea what I wanted from it or where it was going until it was finished.

As far as specific inspiration, most of it comes from my life and the things I enjoy, obviously. Since I think about those things a lot, it’s easy to work them into the writing I’m doing.

I was actually super bummed because once I finished the book last summer, I celebrated my newfound free time by FINALLY watching all of Battlestar Galactica. SO MUCH from that show would have made it into Broetry if I had seen it before I finished the book.

What is your favorite broem in the book? Do you have more that weren’t included?

It’s hard to name my favorite, because they were all written to accomplish different things. Poetically, I think “Bull Fight” is my favorite; it’s one of the more concise and clearly defined broems in the book. I would probably consider “Not Another Teen Movie” to be the most successful in terms of what my intentions were. It far exceeded my original plan, and it even has a few hidden formatting things that I’m proud of. I’m REALLY big on hidden formatting.

I think “Part-Time Job Search” might be the most fun. I very rarely have my own stuff memorized, but I’ve had this one stuck in my head since the day it was written. It’s hard to pick a favorite. Some days I wonder how a certain broem ever made it past my editor, and then other days I catch something as if someone else wrote it and am really pleased to find things I had never noticed before. I know that sounds weird, but some of these really wrote themselves, so I still find little surprises.

There were many broems that didn’t make the book, actually…

There are, however, ten ebook exclusive broems that you can only get if you buy the electronic version of Broetry for your Kindle, Nook, or whatever. I had been on such a huge creative surge for so long while writing the book that I couldn’t really stop once it was turned in, so I begged to include those extra ten broems in the ebook to showcase what I felt were the best of the new batch. “Let’s See If I Can Start a Rap Feud With Lil Wayne” is by far my favorite of the extra ten. It’s not even a contest.

I really enjoyed the satirical-but-thoughtful ‘You and Me and The Absurd Amount of Baggage You Brought Into This Relationship Makes Three’, which straddles figurative and literal in a fun light. Have you super pissed off any ladies in the making of this book?

I have not super pissed off any ladies during the making of this book, but that’ll probably change now that the book is out… The problem is that a lot of the book might be based on situations or people that are very similar to those I’ve experienced or met, but changed to flow better or maintain some theme or other.

Poetry isn’t strictly autobiographical; I’ve changed a lot of things, making some people sound better and some people sound worse. It’s not something anyone should take personally. In “My Brother at Fourteen,” I make the poor kid out to be a huge tool, which isn’t true. Entirely.

My current girlfriend was a little weird at the beginning, but she’s definitely come to understand that the book is by no means a diary. I take some things from here and there, but none of this should ever be used to help write my biography or anything ridiculous like that. Some things are completely, 100% made up.

Except for “He’s in Miami.” That’s totally true, and I hope that kid gets arrested. I want my iced tea back.

Thanks for talking to Geekadelphia! We are looking forward to the Broetry Slam at National Mechanics next week. Peace, brah.