Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Less Than Zero – Book Review

    Plot does not make the novel. People within it do. Just because you can remember the names of some characters in a book, doesn’t mean they are fleshed out. But knowing them still, says something.

    Bret Easton Ellis wrote this book when he was 19 and it was published when he was 21. There are many imperfections in this book, and runny sentences. But the dialogue, characters, and conflicts are solid. I felt the horrible human nature of Los Angeles, along with it’s insufficient excessiveness.

    The story follows Clay returning from New Hampshire for Christmas in LA, and there is a lot of snow in California if ya know what I mean. Also, that euphemism found in second independent clause from the previous sentence would be nowhere to be found in the short novel. The main inferiority of the novel is just that Bret Easton Ellis was too young when he wrote it. Although it gives him an advantage that there is something impressive about his writing, he lacks the sculpting of a story that comes with experience and age.

    Aside from trying to be too dark and edgy, the world could always use a book by a 19 year old about a 19 year old, and how fucked the world seems all about us at that age. It really takes itself seriously, which what any young writer deserves to think about their work. It is written in the present perfect. “I sit in the sun and light a cigarette and try to calm down.” This pushes the novel forward and allows for you to be immersed and feel like you are at the party.

    You read on. I wasn’t compelled or moved, but I read it and I liked it. It read like a movie. It actually does what Hemingway was trying to do. I can’t picture everything, but I am there. Every sentence hurts. That doesn’t mean they are all meaningful, but they feel important.

  • Watch Me Die Inside

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  • 2 hrs 24 mins

    On the last day of last year, I recognized a pattern of two camps. People who were to go out, and people who were to stay in. Because I tend to only go out roughly 100 times in most given years, I thought I’d get outside of my comfort zone. And boy will I tell ya, I still think I can dance.

    Of course I was home by roughly 1 because I don’t afterparty the way I used to. Gosh, elderly old me in my mid-twenties. But at least I wasn’t in bed by 11:30. When I got home I began my annual bewitching hour reflection on year past. There is something of an empty feeling after being with a hundred people, and that night being no different than the other 363.

    I will relay some of my anecdotes, although I will preface that this one was roughly 1/3 shorter than my usual yowling at the moon:

    An insignificant existence looms in my room that has been empty except for one occupant for the past whenever and will be until the next whenever.

    I write a lot about how beautiful the language is of those who die prior to the afterparty. An odd thing to aspire to. It is not so much that I am complacent with life, although much more so than I was when I was twenty-three.

    People can say they don’t care what people think until the cow comes home or the crow comes to roost, but I do. I wish the world knew me for who I was. I’m more like that nowadays than I’ve been for the past decade. I wished I was loved for who I am.

    My life had meaning in it for about 10 years. It was a woman. It really was. You can’t force love, make someone love you, or love someone you don’t, even if the whole world depends on it. My life lost purpose.

  • Monday Night Poetry 1/1/24

  • Bread and

    Well, well, look who’s decided to thumb through my thoughts. I do inherently believe that someone who does not hide away all of their secrets – best to be kept for themselves, but instead shares their mid-twenties wisdom for the world to know – makes us jest with progressive insight. What a delight.

    My first note will be the underwhelming emptiness that I alone feel, along with the rest of the off-webbers. There is something about how uncompelling, nor fulfilling all the most-important relationships are in my life after the evidently superior holiday to rejoice in such a present. I think that not being able to run for the next few weeks (and the past few days) also plays a part. This is it.

    I am lucky to have approximately a hundred close friends and relatives. When I was in college, and/or when I moved back to Chicago, I had maybe twelve total. So many people who care – about me! And I them?

    I feel as though all relationships are passing. Sometimes sharing a good meal at a fast food restaurant that lasts an hour longer than it should, is just as important as people you see every week for a long while (out of enjoyable obligation). But the weeks will end, and the people will go. Or I will.

    I miss people who haven’t left yet, because I know I won’t know them ten years hence. I miss people I loved, because I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I suppose this next anecdote really is one I thought as one of my best thoughts – but if I open with a sentiment about sharing wisdom, I ought to stay true to my word.

    Love is not past tense. I did not loved you. I do not loved you. I love you. Whoever, and whenever we may pass one another or part. Maybe I don’t know everyone. And I certainly don’t know everything (I know I wouldn’t like it if I did), but I love where our roads cross, with the click of a clock, whether for a summer, a year, or an hour. I am only alone as I am with no one. Goodbye again, hello.

Ben Bonkoske is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.