Welcome SHANE ALLISON to BIONIK PU$$Y!

SHANE: ALLISON: Good to see you back.

MIKE ZONE: It’s good to be back.

SA: Lost your dick pics.

MZ: I mean…I guess I could some in a not weird way…

SA: I love looking at your dick.

MZ: Haha, it was the boldness of your art that first caught my eye but your prose and poetry with its raw tone unapologetic truths really established you as a triple threat…it’s like a fear and loathing within the Amerikan Dream. You open to telling us more about that?

SA: Damn you’re not pulling any punches. That’s one of those hot potato questions. Cream cheese dripping off the sides onto your lap hitting that bulged spot in your Jordache jeans.

I was 15 when I really started taking poetry seriously. I felt this young mutant coming into his superpower. I like being able to do this thing that no one knew about and no one else around me could do. It set me above the pack. As a shy, overweight, queer in school and at home where I was constantly ridiculed, I needed that. I stayed with poetry knowing that it would take me somewhere.

I wrote a ton of sappy queer teen love shit and later sappy queer twenty-something shit that was becoming bolder and more sexual in nature because back then I was highly sexual guy. I was crazy shy about going to gay clubs, so meeting guys came in the form hookups in food court mall bathrooms from the age of 14 to now I guess but I don’t cruise much anymore.

I don’t know how I made it through college because I lived in the bathrooms. It’s nasty yeah, but growing up gay, there’s no queer ritual. Being a slut complimented my poetry. I wrote about everything. When I got pinched at 17 for my dick to an undercover mall cop, it was embarrassing to me and my folks and traumatized me for a long time but I took that shit and made proverbial lemons out of lemonade by writing an erotic story about two mall guards getting it on with a young horny twenty-something. It ended up getting published in a gay porn magazine juxtaposed with some cool artwork. I put it to bed after that.

MZ: Who were your influences, back ,then?

SA Allen Ginsberg’s more erotic poems were a big influence on me. Him and Madonna’s videos hahaha.

MZ: Hell yeah, Ginsberg and Madonna make quite a pair. Do you feel like you’re getting somewhere on a creative level with recognition? Ever feel stifled or rather stuck in the indie scene?

SA: I mean I started publishing at 19 so by the time I was junior in college, I had quite a number of publications under my belt, probably more than grad students. I admit publishing was something I desperately wanted. I wanted to see my work published in something with my name next to it. I don’t shy away from that at all. The indie presses put me on when no one else would because my stuff was too sexual and queer.  Writers like the late Brian Fugett out of Ohio, really championed my work. Him and others just had this whole “fuck it” attitude about art and shit. I’ve been in some swell places ,but the indie press is still in me. I just like the “fuck it” attitude of folks like you. The ones who give the middle finger to the establishment of art and poetry. Those elitist gatekeepers of academia. Even with collage I have mindset of “let me take pieces of boring pop culture and turn it on its head.” Some folks don’t want you to push the envelope, you’re doing too much of something they think is wrong, leave the envelope alone but that just fuels me to push through that shit.

MZ: Nobody gets out alive…just recycled.  Damn, I just can’t believe Brian passed away.

SA: Yeah, it was a shock, I knew him a long time and we talked a fuck ton. He was a mile a minute, staying up all night, smoking weed, writing and making tons of work. 

MZ: I’ve never been a fan of “consider your audience”, I believe the best person to create for is yourself and if a genuine expression, people of a sincere nature will tune into your truth. You ever consider a potential audience?

SA: Never do it for others.  The best person to create for is yourself. If people happen to dig what you’re doing along the way, that’s cool but always stay true to you. I don’t really consider a potential audience. I guess the sex poems is for a certain audience but I’ve never been one to stick with that kind of thing for too long. Not out of fear of offending people but because I’m like “okay, time to get a new ride”. I’ve been writing about my folks for the past three years to death of my dad back in April. There’s been: anger, sadness, rage and laughter. I feel like I’m writing some good stuff. A poetic journal of experience that’s been so fucking mind-blowing.

MZ: Poetry is a hell of lot cheaper than therapy for the trauma of existing. Your work has evolved immensely the last couple of years and really packs a punch.  Aside from featuring your work heavily in DUMPSTER FIRE PRESS’s BEDROOM ANATOMY LESSONS, my favorite project we collaborated on was the poetry, prose ,art collection I WANT TO EAT CHINESE FOOD OF YOUR ASS & OTHER POEMS. One of favorite projects I ever edited …is there a particular piece of work you reflect on?

SA: I’ve been going through some stuff and was looking at I WANT TO EAT… and loved seeing my art published in it because that’s all still new to me.  It’s great to see how well that came out and the cover is gnarly. I liked seeing some of the shorter stories in it too. It’s a book, only you could’ve done.  No one else would’ve touched it.

MZ: Any style, genre or medium you want to explore that you haven’t tried yet but yearning to?

SA: Oh, tons of things I’d like to do. Photography, getting into ceramics, write more fiction and another novel for sure. I wrote form poems but when I first discovered it but then thought it was hard to break out of that, but it wasn’t. I feel like I’m writing and making cool stuff, and it continues to evolve which works for me.

MZ: Nice, now to really kick into high gear, how do you feel about  becoming one of our contributors featured on our PUSSY POWER page?

SA: That sounds amazing, I’m honored.

MZ: One of our final ones, it’s as silly as hell…you’re in an imaginary death-match, choose the artist or writer you want to fight to the death with your weapon of choice.

SA: That’s another loaded potato hahaha. I don’t know if I would want it to be to the death but probably Charles Bukowski. I think he would kick my ass, but I would give as good as I get.

MZ: All great answers, man. Anything you want to promote? Any shoutouts to anyone?

SA: I just wanted to promote my newest book TURBULENT, I WANT TO EAT CHINESE FOOD OFF YOUR ASS and my new book REMEMBERED MEN from RANGER PRESS. And a shoutout to you, Brian Fugett and all the other kick ass indie presses that have and continue to give me a home. FREE PALESTINE AND HATI AND FUCK TRUMP.

MZ: Right on, now I get to type all this up and send you some dick pics ‘cause that’s what indie publishers do I. guess. Thanks for being our first feature…PUSSY POWER!

SA: Haha, I do love your dick and yeah everyone knows indie presses are notorious for sending dick pics.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT Shane’s art and poetry on the site and extra stuff included in the interview in the debut issue of BIONIK PU$$Y on sale in November!