Brontez Purnell plays on the idea of memoir in ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’

NPR’s Camila Domonoske speaks with Brontez Purnell about his new book, Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse.

CAMILA DOMONOSKE, HOST:

Finally today, Brontez Purnell is a musician, dancer and writer who brings a punk rock vibe to all those mediums. His new book is “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir In Verse.” It tackles life as a queer Black man from Alabama to Oakland with no holds barred. I chatted with him recently and asked him to begin by reading a poem that meant a lot to him. This one is called “I Am Decided.”

BRONTEZ PURNELL: (Reading) I said to my gay uncle when I was 20, boys don’t like me. Not even looking up from the fried chicken he was breading for dinner, he said to me, honey, go look outside that window there and on the sidewalk. You’ll see that in San Francisco, even the trash gets picked up once a week.

DOMONOSKE: Why that poem?

PURNELL: Because it was a great thing to hear at the age of 20. We never enjoy being young. And we look back at pictures and think, why did I ever have low self-esteem? I should have went to Atlanta and married a basketball player. I should have been, you know, stuck in the Bay making surf rock. But I always – I look at that poem, and I giggle. And it’s always nice when some older person says to you, honey, you’re just enough.

DOMONOSKE: Yeah, but also calls you trash along the way.

(LAUGHTER)

PURNELL: No. Even the trash, even the trash gets picked up.

DOMONOSKE: The poems in this collection are honest, vulnerable and hilarious. As we talked, I asked why he called this poetry collection a memoir.

PURNELL: I do believe that for marginalized people, women, people of color, gay people, all types of stuff, we are most seriously considered when we call something a memoir. Something has to be pulled directly from our gut and our visceral experience in order for us to be, you know, considered something worthwhile or reading. It always has to be a first-hand account. So I called it a…