I'd like to share a special issue of Scapegoat Review with you:
Bitching by Nin and Nicole...

Enjoy!

Photo by cydog66, Flickr

Bitching with Nicole

by Nin Andrews

It began on a Tuesday in October, 2009. Nicole and I were having dinner at

the Café Loup with G, a literary agent,

who told us we should write a book that sells.

We could still write our poems on the side,

sort of like a hobby, maybe like knitting, baking bread, or crocheting.

Nicole immediately responded,

Okay! I will write The Bitch. And that bitch will sell.

But someone has already written a book called Bitch, G. objected.

No, Nicole said. No one has written The Bitch. No one knows the bitch.

Because I own the bitchh. And I will write you the bitch, which will sell

like no other bitch has ever sold.

G. grinned and sipped his martini. Yeah? he said. Okay then. Send me the

bitch.

Ever since that day Nicole and I have been composing poems and essays about

the bitch.

We have sent each other countless emails, poems, parodies, rants, raves,

elegies, essays, comics and laments, all about The Bitch.

Some day we hope to send The Bitch out into the world. Here are some of our

opening pages from The Bitch.

Bitch
by Nicole Santalucia

This would be me but it is so much easier to say it is you and your mom and your
dog and your stupid husband and his brother and their dad and wife and her mom
and dad and your kids are annoying bitches please keep them inside your house
where you and your bitch-face husband made them and please don’t leave your
husband we don’t need another goddamn loose bitch to touch someone who’s not
a bitch you can keep your bitch family to your-bitch-self.

Nicole’s “Bitch”
by Nin Andrews

The title of Nicole’s poem might easily offend you.
Whatever this title means, you might assume it has nothing
to do with you. (After all, who would call you a bitch?)
Maybe you have never read a poem like this
and have never considered the possibility
that you are a real bitch.
So clearly, it’s addressed to someone else.
Clearly it is not compatible with your role of spouse,
good citizen, upright pillar of society.
Clearly you would never be seen
in the company of a poem like this,
a poem that is radical, irreverent, uncouth,
a poem that flings it’s bare arms in the air
and dances like an infidel
in the pristine sanctuary of your mind,
urging you to seize the day,
change your life,
get drunk, stay drunk,
on wine, virtue, poetry . . .
Or bitching,
as you wish.

How To Find Your Inner Bitch
by Nin Andrews

Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Then take this precious moment to notice your
mind. Notice your thoughts, your feeling, your senses. Then notice your bitchy thoughts,
and the urge to repress your bitchy thoughts. Do not repress your bitchy thoughts.
Instead accept them one by one. Label them, bitchy thought number one,
bitching thought number two, bitchy thought number three. Notice that there is
no end to your bitchy thoughts. Feel how natural your bitchy thoughts are,
how one bitchy thought always leads to another, just as one drop of water flows into
another. Notice that the bitchier the thought, the more alive, awake, even on fire you
feel. Feel the fire of the bitch within. For this is your true bitch nature. This is the bitch you really are.

The Town of Bitch
by Nicole Santalucia

has one grocery store, one coffee shop,
one hospital, and one library.
All the residence of Bitch
wake up early and drink Bitch coffee
(the coffee beans are from Bitches County).
The bitches go to the grocery store
and fill their carts with cans of Bitch food.
They stop off at the hospital to visit their old, Bitch mothers.
Then they go to the library and read about how to grow a Bitch
from scratch. By the time they get home it is time to cook dinner,
and by nightfall everyone in Bitch Town is lying in bed counting bitches.
They fall asleep and dream only bitch dreams.

In the Town of the Bitch
by Nin Andrews

1. In the town of the Bitch, bitching is a sacred art. Everyone must bitch. Men, women, children, infants, dogs . . .

2. But in recent years a new type of citizen has emerged, a serene citizen. The townies are alarmed by the presence of these new and serene citizens in their midst, and refer to them only as Mr. and Ms. Serenity. What are they hiding behind their polite smiles?

3. Meanwhile the average person continues to bitch, not only for themselves but also for Mr. and Ms. Serenity.

4. Recent research suggests a correlation between the number of hours one bitches and the integrity of a person. For this reason, no one trusts Mr. and Ms. Serenity.

5. Sometimes Mr. and Ms. Serenity dream of bitching. They thrash and swear and wake in their beds, sheets soaked, swear words escaping their lips. But how to make them bitch in public, like everyone else? medical experts ask.

6. Therapists call Mr. and Mrs. Serenity les homme manques, likening them to those humans whose essential ingredients are missing.

7. According to The Joy of Bitching, the ability to bitch, like the ability to achieve orgasms, can be lost forever through lack of practice.

8. A lifetime without bitching can render a man impotent, a woman frigid, and both eternally forgettable, much like puffy white clouds on a serenely blue sky.

Nin Andrews is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, Why They Grow Wings and Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane, Sleeping with Houdini, Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum, and Southern Comfort. Her chapbook, The Secret Life of Mannequins, is forthcoming from Kattywompus Press.

Nicole Santalucia is the poetry editor of Harpur Palate and is currently pursuing a PhD in English with a concentration in creative writing at Binghamton University. She recently received an honorable mention grant from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. In March of 2012 she will read her work at the Poetry Center in Paterson, NJ for the the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award reading event.