Screaming At the World
Realistic Meat Substitute is a collection of poems covering themes ranging from conspiracy and commodification to digital alienation and political hysteria. Did you write these poems with a specific audience in mind, or was it a more personal endeavor?
I do a lot of screaming at the world in my poems.
Pointing in laughter, recoiling in horror. Singing with joy, sighing in relief where beauty and goodness can be found. It’s deeply personal, of course, sometimes cathartic. I write with the hope that it might resonate with pessimists and optimists alike—that my fellow human beings on planet earth can relate. But, if a machine intelligence (or something otherwise) gets it, too—great! Welcome aboard.
How do you begin a poem—image, phrase, rhythm, or idea?
I like to improvise and fiddle with language. Usually no plan, no preconceived ideas to start. I don’t want to know what the puzzle is until I solve it, I guess. Open the box, dump the puzzle pieces on the table and get started. Start with the middle or the border pieces? Let intuition be the guide. Musicality is also important. Paying attention to the beat and rhythm of the line, I’ll experiment and play with juxtapositions—see what might stick. What does it mean? What’s it trying to say? Sometimes I’ll have a scene or a situation in mind, so I’ll start with something descriptive of that image. Meaning, subject, theme—whatever the poem is “about”—that generally comes later, if at all.
Was it important for you to balance satire and intensity with genuine emotional vulnerability?
I think the better poems balance the head and heart, the emotional with the cerebral. Absurdity and irony, with sincerity. Tender, but with bite. If the satire works, it can activate the mind, make you smirk and think, but it’s also driven by emotion. It can be a way of coping with baffling contradiction, trouble, hurt and pain. But, like a ruthless, criminal gangster/bad guy from a story—there’s got to be some relatable humanity to the character, otherwise there’s no emotional investment offered to pull a reader/viewer into the story.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Realistic Meat Substitute?
Well, here’s a few things. I hope they enjoyed the ride. I hope I earned the reader’s attention. Life is crazy. Poetry can be many things. Open up and pay attention. To quote artist/musician Laurie Anderson: “Don’t be afraid of anyone, get a good bullshit detector, and be tender.”
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
left of the soul when everything else is artifice and imitation.”—Randomly Chosen AI Chatbot, after prompts by the book’s author to construct a blurb
for the back cover of Realistic Meat Substitute*
*AUTHOR’S NOTE: ABSOLUTELY NO POEMS CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK
Posted on April 1, 2026, in Interviews and tagged American life, author, book, book recommendations, book review, book reviews, book shelf, bookblogger, books, books to read, Chris D'Errico, collection, contemporary life, digital world, ebook, goodreads, indie author, kindle, kobo, literature, nook, novel, poems, poetry, Poetry Themes & Styles, politics, read, reader, reading, Realistic Meat Substitute, story, writer, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
As I consider this striking interview and the restless creative spirit behind it, I find myself drawn to its unapologetic embrace of chaos, contradiction, and raw expression. The notion of “screaming at the world” is not merely theatrical but deeply human, a way of grappling with absurdity, digital noise, and the uneasy textures of contemporary life. What resonates most is the author’s willingness to let poems emerge without rigid design, guided instead by intuition, rhythm, and a playful yet searching engagement with language itself . There is a compelling balance here between satire and sincerity, where irony sharpens perception while vulnerability anchors it in lived experience. In this, the work affirms that poetry need not resolve the world’s tensions, only bear witness to them with honesty, musicality, and a voice unafraid to both question and feel.