Publisher’s Description

If Martha Stewart needs advice on removing those pesky bloodstains from the carpet, she finally knows whom to call. But she might want to call ahead and bring along a little extra muscle. In Dying, a satire of the pop-culture phenomenon, Living magazine, Michael Arnzen turns Stewart’s cheery perfectionism into something almost as horrible…

Praise

“As one might hope, Dying whipsaws the reader from giggling to guffawing to cringing, often all on the same page. The thin volume employs 16 sections to offer the sorts of stylish homemaking tips that might have been practiced by the family in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre if only those worthies had sprung from an upscale background.” –Ed Bryant, Locus Magazine

“The title of horror author Michael Arnzen’s short collection of verses says it all. Each brief poem contains Martha Stewart-like tips for killing, cleaning up after murder, or disposing of the evidence. Most of the poems end with a sick twist that make the satire laugh-out-loud funny….Dying is a quick must read for fans of dark comedy (whether they love or despise poetry). But beware: these verses are truly sick — and truly addictive.” –Bookloons

“The poem is uncanny in its bland inability to cover over the horror of our physical bodies…this theme, the uncanny return of the body in all its messy ‘bodiness’ against the ineffective mediation of words, of culture, of technology, of all idealizations that move us toward abstraction and away from our smelly, gurgling selves, is characteristic of Arnzen’s work…this is the kind of horror those in the grip of the promise of new technology and its seeming power and mastery over the world needs to hear.” –Dr. David Sandner, Dissections journal

Excerpt

Here’s one of the “tips” from Dying — a very brief excerpt from a very brief chapbook:

#6

Don’t sweat the small stuff.
And it’s all small stuff:
eardrums, thumbnails, kidneys,
elbow nuggets, toe knuckles, eyeballs.
Let them go.

Specs

Dying (With No Apologies to Martha Stewart) by Michael A. Arnzen
Publisher: Tachyon Publications, 2003
Chapbook. Saddle-stapled; linen cardstock, 2-color cover. 20pp.
ISBN: 1-82391-06-6
Out of Print

Related Links

• A reprint of Dying is now available as a bonus feature in the hardcover edition (only) of The Gorelets Omnibus
• Visit the publisher, Tachyon Publications.
• Return to the Books and Other Creative Works page