Pico, Tommy: IRL

IRL by Tommy Pico (Birds LLC, paperback)

Publication Date: September 1, 2016

Publisher Marketing: Poetry. Native American Studies. LGBT Studies. Winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. IRL is a sweaty, summertime poem composed like a long text message, rooted in the epic tradition of A.R. Ammons, ancient Kumeyaay Bird Songs, and Beyoncé's visual albums. It follows Teebs, a reservation-born, queer NDN weirdo, trying to figure out his impulses/desires/history in the midst of Brooklyn rooftops, privacy in the age of the Internet, street harassment, suicide, boys boys boys, literature, colonialism, religion, leaving one's 20s, and a love/hate relationship with English. He's plagued by an indecision, unsure of which obsessions, attractions, and impulses are essentially his, and which are the result of Christian conversion, hetero-patriarchal/colonialist white supremacy, homophobia, Bacardi, gummy candy, and not getting laid.

IRL asks, what happens to a modern, queer indigenous person a few generations after his ancestors were alienated from their language, their religion, and their history? Teebs feels compelled towards "boys, burgers, booze," though he begins to suspect there is perhaps a more ancient goddess calling to him behind art, behind music, behind poetry.

"Pico's brilliant, funny, and musical book-length debut...channel[s] a rush of Internet slang and emoticons, run-on ramblings and sentence fragments, and poppy lyrical bursts...Pico's skillful rendering of Teeb's coming-of-age attempts to create a cohesive identity out of his many selves proves to be entertaining, enlightening, and utterly relatable in the age of the smartphone."—Publishers Weekly Starred Review