The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Disquieting Levels of Egg

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Get your copy of Disquieting Levels of Egg and also three other books of poems if you want em: https://www.jdfmccann.com/booksJoin the Patreon if you want to: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccann Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes-McCand-Catamaran plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.com. Clom? Ah, we f***ed that. Anyway, you'll, look, you'll find a way. Capital Home! When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most, when your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard?

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grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. Acast.com. Disquieting levels of egg. Dissquieting levels of egg, the new book of poems by James Donald Forbes McCann. Me. It's out now. It's on Amazon.

44 new poems. some of them good some of them great one of them exceptional which one that's up for you to read and decide exceptionally good exceptionally bad again i leave that in your capable hands disquieting levels of egg if you'd like the audio book of disquieting levels of egg go and join the james donald forza mccann catamaran plan patreon that's where i'm going to be recording and uploading the audiobook haven't done there yet but i will be doing that in the next week or so Also, we've mass dropped 100 pages of Wimbledog. So it goes all the way up to page 104 or 105, depending on how you count.

What a good Patreon. What a good time. There's never been a better time to join the Patreon. So many secret episodes. So much Wimbledog. So much audiobook. That'll be four audiobooks up there on the Patreon for Patreon people. But if you go, I don't join a Patreon.

I'm not a Patreon joining person. I'm more of a poetry buying person. Disquieting levels of egg. Out now for your buying. I'm being way too loud and I'm waking everybody up. I'll shut up. Oh, I've got to be quiet. I'm sorry, I still don't have a studio.

I'm still doing this in the living room. I got very excited about disquiting levels of egg and I disquieted the family. I could hear some thumping upstairs. And you can hear me now being very, very quiet indeed. Oh, is it going to change? changed my life. I've been disquieting levels of egg, released right now, for the world to see. Hmm? Maybe. Although after having three other books of poems come out and not having that, you know,

it's changed my life and that people now write to me now and they go, James, your poems. Wow. Thumbs up. Thanks, mate. And I, you know, I see that message and sometimes I respond, and I say, hey, man, always a man. I say, hey, man. Yeah. just glad they could, yeah, that's the sort of beautiful interpersonal back and forth. That's the sort of connection you can only have when you're ripping off poems as fly as these disquieting levels of egg. You know, some people say, oh, James, you're not really in the poetry establishment. And I say, correct, I'm a poet for the people.

Vox Populi, Voxmoa. I think the Academy and all these highfalutin poets, with poems that no one could read or understand or sing along to, or snippety snap their fingers, a betrayal of poetry, the essence of poetry, and dare I say that I've returned to a more primal, yet sophisticated. Really, there's no adjective I wouldn't use for my book of poems if I thought it would help you to buy it to send it back up the charts. We've had three number one books of poems thus far.

and I hope this is a fourth number one. Four number ones, get the prostate check. That's too many number one. You just want one continuing stream. Oh, I'm also, I'm hard at work on my next book of part. I always, I release a book apart. This is the fourth year that I've, was it a fourth year, third year, four, you know, it's hard to say if you start.

Does the year, anyway, three years ago I had to, and then the next book was another one, and the next year is another one. And now I'm here. So if you add it all up, I think it's three years, but four with the extra time spent beforehand to write the first one.

Anyway, what was I say? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The important thing is disquieting levels of egg. It's out now. For all of you. And I'll stop rambling on about it. I just, that's just what I wanted to mention it.

You know, full important. I'd put it out on the Instagram and the substack and the X. And I thought, how else can I let people know about disquieting levels of egg? And it's here on the podcast where my most treasured and loving potential disquiting levels of egg buyers. Ah, James, what sort of poems are in disquieting levels of egg? Well, how about I read you one? How about I sit up and read you one of the longer poems in disquiting levels of egg? Dilo, if you want to, you know, that's a, that's a, I mean, and then I just look through it and I go,

I don't want to read any of these. Well, here's one. I was going to, is that the one? That's probably not the one. Let me figure out which one. This one. Well, here's one. This one's called Being Great is very easy. Being Great is very easy, a poem by James Donald Fools of Can in Discourse. Deguiting, Levels of Egg, my longest book of poems to date. Because the poems, some of them, quite long. And this one's quite long. So it'll fill up a lot of the podcast and give you many opportunities to go,

hey, I, not all of you will have this. Some of you will go, eh, this is going on, I don't care for this, I'm getting rid of this. But some of you go, ooh, I'm going to get me a couple of disquieting levels of egg. Being great is very easy. How does one get one's poetry into the schools? How does one get one's poetry into the curriculum? How do poems become the subject of teenager-level homework so frequently that teachers are ubiquitously sick of them? I want to move units by sheer obligation.

I want to dominate shelves at the Salvation Army. I want parents to say, I remember these poems, and for lines of them to be tattooed over the scarified skin of young women who have committed to stopping self-harming. I had a big thing of yogurt before starting. I didn't realize that eating a lot of yogurt would really come between me and read. this poem the way I wanted to read it, but I'll just, I'll persevere. But just imagine how good the audiobook of this is going to be on the Patreon, where I have not eaten a lot of yogurt before. I will make sure. I'll continue with the poem. Who is it that must be moved and how's the moving to be done? Which woman, man, or I suspect,

which team of 20 hideous women, which university where those women went, that they might be crowned the ultimate arbiters of generational poetry excellence? What is it that they want? What is it that they want? What is it that they can get away with? What is it that won't make them worry about a revolt from the reticent parents of kids? What is that golden line? Being great is not enough. Being great is very easy. Being politic is real tough stuff. Greatness spews out of everybody everywhere and every day. The jazz band and the hatstand and the Crip Walk and the gay and the factory farm farming and the athlete in flight from the great and easy morning till the horrifying respite. Peter Pan and the Panhandler, Chelsea Football, Chelsea Handler, that which one perceives to be the

family life of Adam Sandler and some films of Adam Sandler and the city of New Orleans. Heston, Oliver, Nigella, Gordon Ramsey, rice and beans, fuck objective excellence and death through inspiration, long live middle school syllabacies, spark notes and unenthusiastic recitation, kiss, a kiss, kiss me, a fine, fine place to start the undertaking to garner the attention of the students newly outmaking. Yes, a little sex, then gender, and a little class, then death, and one or two techniques, and 50,000 shiboleths, and it must be all just short enough that it can be assigned, and it must be, yes, just long enough to write about come exam time, and at least a little bit of it must be out of the student's reach, because if it's all too simple,

the English teachers won't have very much to teach, but it has fundamentally got to be broadly comprehensible because in general English teachers are not especially intelligent people, and you can have that in the poem. English teachers won't be offended because they have low opinions of one another and think they themselves are the exception. Now, the writing of the poems is nothing at all.

I had to read school poems that were poorly done, so the quality can't be the criterion, and the poem itself can be tossed out in an hour. Poems aren't that long. It's not like writing a Russian novel. The difficult thing is maneuvering, getting in with the right folks and becoming a symbol for whatever their agenda is.

That's the way to force poems into the hands of the keys. And I think that can probably be done with awards, or at least the awards of proof it has happened. Big awards that have prestige and newspaper articles, the Nobel Prize for Literature, you know, Black Tie type shit, baby. Even smaller awards like the Pulitzer Prize and whatever awards are even smaller than that

that I haven't heard about because I'm not much for establishment credibility or awards or for poems. So how do you start winning poetry accolades? You can't just show up with a bribe at the ceremony or everybody will see you handing over a bribe and everybody will know that a bribe has taken place and the award won't work.

One must be more subtle because the award has to look like you really deserve it as though they've boiled down objectivity down to a statue, even though they haven't, because that is impossible. No matter what award it is, the award goes to a hack. It's all about getting a slap on the back and selling, if not your soul, then your work, to the if not the devil, a devil-like entity. And the best way to make that transaction transpire is with a series of bribes over several years.

Access as a bribe and respect as a bribe and lunches and so on and so forth as bribes. And that's what a literary agent is for. And back in the day, I don't know how they found you. Maybe they just read poems all day and said this one, that one. But now there are analytics and they want to make money. At least some of them do, surely. So the first step and task is an agent who believes that the poems won rights will make bona fide money. First you get the money, then plaudits, then power,

then mandatory books of poems into the schools. Four unaligned hoops for the poems to fly through. It's closer to a maze or one of those games in Japanese arcades with the little metal balls. There really isn't a strong metaphor I can think up for it. There are ways to make poem money that do not result in an agent. There are ways to get an agent that do not result in awards. There are ways to win awards that do not result in school poems. You've got to make money, but in a serious way.

You've got to get an agent and get one of the right ones. You've got to win awards, but the right kind of awards. And it isn't enough to win a posthumous award, because even if the poems then get into the schools, one will be too dead to enjoy all the fruits. It is no good to bring poems out as a celebrity, a celebrity book deal to bring out the poems. If I were to become a real-deal-type celebrity, which, as far as I can tell, isn't entirely off-table. It would be, would it not a most harmful mistake? Lana Del Rey had a book of poems. Her poems aren't taught in the schools.

Maybe that's because of the poems. I haven't read her poems. Leonard Cohen wrote a book of poems about great big tits. And if that's in the schools, I don't remember having seen it. Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. It's actually a pretty good read. And it's a square. And that's fun. And you know, imagine a big hot dog.

Cover it in mustard. Keep covering it until you cannot see the hot dog anymore. Eat it when your husband dies. That's not in the schools. Not because of the poems. Worse poems than that have been taught in the schools. but Yoko was a celebrity, or thought to be a celebrity, which is possibly what being a celebrity is.

One needs an audience. Yes, but a certain kind of audience. Have you ever walked into an anime store, or a store where they sell all the trading card games, or a sporting good store, or a hardware store? Those are not the types of people I am looking for. No. The best candidates are loners in bookstores and bars,

and women at rallies who work in the arts, doing wonky poetry that nobody wants to buy, like a mug with a handle you can't get your finger in. That there is who I need. That's the target demographic. That's the coveted precondition for the right kind of agent. And the fastest way to get them is lesbianism, because the lessees roll tight and roll hard and roll strong.

So before you get the money, you have to get the women with sexual interest in women. But sadly, my stock as a lesbian is at an all-time low, and that is the only way into the schools that I know. No. So that's one of the 44 poems in disquieting levels of egg. New book of poetry. Out and out.

If you didn't like that poem, hey, don't worry about it. Extremely different poems are in the book. Shall I read another one? Oh, why not? Why not read just one more poem? One more sweet poem over here from the book. Not that one. Not that one?

Oh, not that one Not that one What they've done That the proms is Unforgeapa I mean I don't want to do another big long one I'll do another short one

In case you're going These poems too long Make my head hurt Oh not that one Anyway Look I think you'll like the poems I think you'll like them I think you like that one

I think you like that one I think you like that one now that I have a bicycle everything will turn around I will be fit and confident and transcend sexual anxiety people without bicycles are fat and weak and riddled with horrendous sexual anxiety well I mean that's another one that's one of the shorter ones I wrote that one after I'd bought a bicycle but some of them are quite long

anyway it's out now I'm thinking about doing a show in Israel and having a little holiday there I bet there's lots of interesting stuff, like the special sea where you can float. So yet another poem there from disquieting levels of egg, the new poems by James Donald Forbes McCann. And I've done absolutely no work whatsoever to ingratiate myself into the poetry establishment. Should I have sent some of these poems before publication to poetry publishing places and journals and periodicals? Yeah, maybe, but then I looked up how many books of poems people sell. I did. I looked up how many, like really high-brow, you know, the poems that people who are involved in poetry journals, people who get poems published in the New York Times and that sort of business.

How many books of poems? Even poet laureates of the United States. How many books of poems? They sell nothing. They sell nothing. I'm stomping these clowns. If I got involved and they championed me as a hero, this would be financially, this would render me no closer to buying a boat whatsoever. Do you know how many of those poets are buying boats? I suspect none. Unless one of those poets is the inheritor to the kingdom of sowed or something. No, my poems are for you.

My poems are for the people. The people's poet. The people's poet. James Donald Force we can. Catamaran plan. Poems. Anyway, we'll see how it sounds. I mean, surely, Jimmy, you're not telling me you've poured all this time and energy into writing yet another book of poems, seriously thinking that your poetical achievements will be the thing that makes you enough money in the long run.

When the stand-up comedy is going so well. Jimmy, the stand-up comedy is going so well. or if you just spend a little less time on the poems, a little more time on the stand-up comedy, there are a couple more stand-up comedy. Maybe you have a special come out that's longer than 18 minutes, and maybe the money will come with that. Maybe the podcast, instead of just you,

talking alone into a microphone, maybe if you've got a co-host, got some guests, got some high-profile guest, maybe you'd make enough money with the stand-up comedy of the podcast, and that'd be the way to get a bonus. I believe in the poems, because I believe in being a voice for the

if not voiceless then I don't really know how those words are supposed to go I used up all my good words in the book of poems and there are some excellent words in the book of poems it's not all just cheap easy words some of the words that get used in this I'm just I'm looking at it now

I'm looking at it now at some of the beautiful words that we use orthodoxy that's a word in one of the poems Vietnam that's another one of the words that we used vacuum concocted

spastic pussy these are some words that find that I'm just picking words at random I'm not going to give you full poems I'm just fashion that's a word that's in the book of poems doesn't that it'll listen gymnastics wow

24 that's a good number be flags that's another word in the book of poems incorrectly wow there are some big resonances the lonely the murder a very exciting word to have in the book of poem algorithm frankly i think we hear the word algorithm too often but i'll give you another word that's in the book of poems i'm looking out right now it's a pretty good word sensual can you imagine if you pick up a new book of poems, you flip it over, you go, sensual. And you go, ho, that's the sort of book of poems I've been looking forward to reading.

Quality. Not only is the word sensual quality, but the word quality is on a different page in the book. Dulce de leche. That's in the book. That's in the book. Cold. What if I, two words together. Two words.

More limbs. I'll give you three words Even more smooth Yes I think three Kitchens elsewhere Oh I bet you can't wait to hear that one in context In disquieting levels of egg How many trips to Thailand

Shouldn't an Australian man be allowed to take It's got to be more than one Just for the sake of the Thai economy But you've got to draw the line somewhere For the sake of human decency Two trips to Thailand every year for eight consecutive years and you are not ethnically a Thai and you have no family in Thailand. You're not married to a Thai girl and your work doesn't take you to Thailand and you never go

and visit, I don't know, Japan or Singapore, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, the Republic of China or the People's Democratic Republic of China, just Thailand, back to back for eight consecutive years. Do you think you're fooling anyone? Do you think we don't all know what you're getting up to over in Thailand? writing a motorcycle without a helmet, closed parentheses. But that, you know, so that was a full poem. That just wasn't a series. I mean, it was a series of individual words,

but that was also how they work in sequence in one of the poems, a poem, if you can guess, it's called Thailand. But it reminds me that that poem includes the word Singapore. And what a beautiful word it is to say, Singapore, revolution, sexual, robotics. 20 minutes. That's an exciting amount of time to have a book of poems open and to flip it open for about 20 minutes. It's about how long you'll have to be reading the poems

to get through to reading the words 20 minutes in the book of poems. If you start at the first word and you work your way all the way through to 20 minutes, people will go, hey, I've been reading this for about 20 minutes. And he just said 20 minutes. Did I put that there on purpose? No. No. business class. That's in the book of poems. Fat and weak. Now you already heard that in

bicycle. That's no. Seychelles. That's a good one. Drowners. It's a bit clunky, but it's a title, so it's technically I don't believe. Groceries. All right, we're running out of good words for the police. We're running out of good words. Give it freedom. Ah, we're back. Back to a good word in the book of poems. Rocks. Now we might have run out of good words in the book of poems. Disquieting levels of egg. It's out now. You can bite if you want. Disquieting levels of egg, disquiting levels of egg. It's out now. Soon to be number one. You can be a part of that. Be a part of something beautiful and special and new. Desquiting levels of egg. You're out now. I love you and monsieur. I want you need you. Catamaranhoe. Goodbye.