Here, Take This, I Love You: Chapter 11
The poetry book, Dark Sparkler, on the lives and deaths of actresses + a special broadside.
Darklings,
For our January edition of HTTILY, we gave away a signed script from Joan of Arcadia, a TV show I once starred in that changed my life in many ways. For National Poetry Month, I’m giving away a book of mine that did the same thing for my literary career: Dark Sparkler.
Dark Sparkler is a poetry book that explores the lives and deaths of young actresses, real and imagined, with accompanying artwork by luminaries such as David Lynch, Adrian Tomine, Marcel Dzama, and my father, Russ Tamblyn. My choice to include only male visual artists in the book was intentional. The works I commissioned were meant to inspire each artist’s own interpretation of my poems and the lives of these women—women such as Brittany Murphy, Dana Plato, and Jayne Mansfield—and their many objectifications; a male gaze interpreting these women as interpreted by me.
Dark Sparkler took nearly a decade to complete in large part due to the scope of research required to learn and write about the actresses and their dark, complicated lives and untimely deaths. These deep dives inevitably led me down rabbit holes of other actresses and stories I hadn’t known about, before I ultimately turned the inquiry inward, unexpectedly becoming a subject in my own work. While researching these actresses—most of whose names you will not recognize, which in and of itself speaks to the idea of fame and infamy, what lasts and what does not—I found myself identifying with them, with the idea of ceasing: not of a literal death like theirs, but of an existential one, of being reborn so that I could become something new.
I would consider Dark Sparkler to be a magnum opus of sorts: something I am wildly proud to have not only written but survived the writing of. The research and writing of these poems became a years-long obsession for me that deeply informed a real-life existential crisis I was facing as a young, objectified actress in need of a big shift in her life. When the book finally came out, I once again found myself wanting to work with artists to more fully realize these ghostly women and their stories. So for the book’s launch, I asked Yo La Tengo (one of the greatest bands of all time) if they would be interested in collaborating on something very special. Together, we created an hour-long poetry opera of sorts, with original music by Yo La Tengo scoring the poetry. I read the book, nearly cover to cover, while they played. We performed the show twice, once at the book launch at Housing Works in New York, and then at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. It was an extraordinary, haunting experience, and a collaboration I will never forget.
Performing Dark Sparkler with Yo La Tengo at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 2015:
Video courtesy of Michelle Freeman (@fauxreal_ on Instagram)
Writing Dark Sparker was a life-changing experience that forced me to confront so much about my life and its future by writing about women who no longer had one; a sincere but darkly-humored meditation on fame, death, grief, and survival.
In addition to a copy of Dark Sparkler, I’ll include a very special hand-printed broadside from Sore Dove Press of the poem “Brittany Murphy,” which, as always, I will personalize and sign for the winner.
Has an artist’s unexpected or untimely passing ever informed your creative work? Let me know in the comments.
NOTE: Please review the full eligibility details, rules, and info below. All active Paid, Founding, and Gift subscription recipients that have subscribed before Friday, April 26, 2024 at 11:59pm ET will be automatically entered into the Chapter 11 giveaway. The recipient will first be notified via Substack Direct Message. If the recipient has disabled direct messaging, they will be notified via the email address connected to their Substack account. This notification email will be sent from LITDSubstack@gmail.com, so be sure to add that address to your contacts so you don’t miss out!
