My mash-up project began as an experiment with layering my own work in order to manipulate the emotions of my listeners/readers but has since evolved into a kinda freaky and intense exploration of the meticulously constructed sonic qualities of purportedly “meter-oblivious” contemporary poetry. The mash-ups have been able to easily articulate many things that I found difficult to prove to people who weren’t as actively involved in contemporary poetry as I am: that contemporary poets are, more than ever, writing poetry that aspires to the beautiful and irresistible natural meter of human speech (something popular music has had figured out for years); that new poetics are not as distant from the past (as popular critics coax us into believing); that poetry is not inaccessible and “only for poets.” Aside from all that boring stuff, the mash-ups are fun to make and make me happy and have taught me a lot about my own work & the work of others—my friends, heroes, etc. which is not going to go wasted on me (which is why I am telling you about it).
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Cassandra Gillig loves The Poetry Project (http://poetryproject.org/) and is editing a collection of Hannah Weiner’s clairvoyant journals. She distracts Mark Cugini while he tries to edit Big Lucks Books and is one half of Same Text, an ambiguous performance or publishing or research enterprise (???). Her poetry album Sex Beach (Black Cake Records, 2014) is bad and her mash-ups album Put Me in Charge of Poetry Magazine and I Will Fuck This Country Up (http://cassandragillig.bandcamp.com) is just OK.
THE HOME SCHOOL 
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