The Last Submission I Loved: by M.M. Carrigan of Taco Bell Quarterly
Editor’s Note: In our super cool newsletter, the Barrelhouse Buzz, we run a semi-regular column where we ask literary magazine editor friends to tell us about the last submission they loved. This week we’re thrilled to be featuring M.M. Carrigan, from Taco Bell Quarterly.
I edit a literary magazine called Taco Bell Quarterly, where the only guideline is every piece must contain a Taco Bell reference. It’s a joke. It’s totally serious. It’s a monster writing prompt come alive in the lab, and now I’ve read thousands of pieces of writing about Taco Bell. I have a weird glint in my eye.
All lit mag editors do. And then we tell you that working with literary magazines is a transformative and rewarding experience that makes you a better writer. You quickly realize your ideas and experiences are not all that unique. That you lean on the same bad habits and easy descriptions in early drafts. That you set your work in similar drive-thrus and have sat in the same polyester-padded chairs under the same buzzing neon lights and have even described everything the same as everyone else. This isn’t a bad thing. Writing is and should be that hard.
Falling in love on the other hand, is easy. It happens in that magical moment when the writer makes all the hard parts of writing disappear. I fell in love with dozens of submissions for the sixth issue of TBQ. But the poem Ode to My Mother Pissing a Mountain Dew Baja Blast Cup by Terri Linn Davis was the first piece I knew I would include.
I have sat shotgun in hundreds of cars going to and from Taco Bells. From the opening line, the ride felt different. “On a long car ride in the backseat of her SUV / as I drive 80 miles an hour on the highway.”
Right away, we’re speeding down the highway. We’re jumping between seats. Only the period gives us a pause. I look up to see who is driving. There is a narrator is in control, calm, hands firmly gripping the wheel at 10 and 2. Everything is fine.
“It’s these times I think about / the Antisocial Personality Disorder / you were diagnosed with in prison.”
Another period. It’s going to be fine. Everything is fine.
“A type Google said you have in common with Charles Manson and Hannibal Lector. Mother, / you are uncapped; cyst-like, a cavity of abnormal /
We spin around to reveal the backseat, full of cavities and cysts, cannibals and maybe even Charles Manson, but everything is totally fine. It’s only the narrator’s mother, and in fact, things have only just begun to escalate. “If only that psychiatrist could see you now” the narrator continues, as we race down the highway and the tension blossoms into spectacle and awe of the grand finale foretold in the title, with cups of piss overflowing and taking flight. It’s a beautiful ride and I fell in love anew, even if we were getting Taco Bell, again.
I was also lucky to witness Terri Linn Davis read this poem live at the first annual CLASH Books x TBQ offsite at AWP, which was another one of those incredibly rewarding and magical experiences that only literary magazines can bring to your life and creative writing. Get involved with one today! Pay no attention to this haunted grin on my face!
- MM Carrigan