Dark Sparkler Read online

  Thanks for taking the time to read this and happy holidays,

  Amber Tamblyn

  From: Stage 9 Talent

  to: Amber Rose

  date: Sat, Dec 28, 2013 at 10:57 PM

  subject: Re: Inquiry

  From: Amber Rose

  to: Stage 9 Talent

  date: Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 6:53 PM

  subject: Re: Inquiry

  Sorry—there was a reply from you but no message. Did you intend to have a message for me?

  Thanks,

  Amber

  Did you intend to have a message for me?

  Definition of MEMENTO MORI:

  A reminder of mortality.

  ORIGIN: Latin.

  Translation:

  Remember that you must die.

  From: Russ Tamblyn

  to: Amber Tamblyn

  date: Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 7:45 PM

  subject: RE: Papa.

  to me

  I’m over it! You just were not supposed to do this show. I KNOW something even better will come along. Hopefully, a comedy.

  Please don’t feel bad about it. That is not where you’re supposed to be. Your time will DEFINITELY come again and I believe in you emphatically!

  So much love to you.

  Acknowledgments

  Starting from the beginning: Thank you Roxane Gay, Rachel Mckibbens, and Mindy Nettifee for planting the seeds. Thank you Beau Sia, Derrick Brown, Janet Fitch, Jennifer L. Knox, Jeremy Gara, Ken Kwapis, Ilya Kaminski, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Katie Jacobs, Ben Foster, Chris Palko, Noelle Kocot, Emily Wells, Harris Hartman, Jillian Roscoe, Alla Plotkin, April Jones, and Keeli Shaw for watering them. Thank you America, Blake, and Alexis for growing with me and letting me grow with you. Thank you Tilda, for the Highlands, where many of these poems were written, and for Sandro, and the gift of giving myself permission to say no. Thank you Neil LaBute, for “phenomena” and everything else misspelled. Jack Hirschman, your name must be in every book I ever write, so here it is.

  Thank you Mindy Nettifee, again, because it needs to be said twice.

  This book is in memory of Wanda Coleman, for teaching me how to fight, and with what. Diane Di Prima, thank you for yelling, “Amber, just get back on the damn road!” when we were lost that one night on Treasure Island in San Francisco. I needed that.

  Brendan Constantine, thank you for the poems “Francis Farmer” and “Quentin Dean.”

  Christin O’Keefe Aptowicz: This book would not have been finished without your commitment to it and to me. Thank you for fielding my many despairs along the way.

  Thank you to all the artists who created for this book: David Lynch, Marcel Dzama, Adrian Tomine, George Herms, Sage Vaughn, Kid Koala, Travis Louie, Sandro Kopp, Pat Hamou, and my papa, Russ. And for you, Manson, whom I can’t really thank, I’ll thank Lily instead.

  Thank you Michael Robbins for editing these poems in their fresh infancy and tirelessly reminding me of the difference between “It’s” and “its.” You are a friend for life.

  Thank you Fred Sasaki, Travis Nichols, Matt Hart and Forklift Ohio, Ben Greenberg, Jeff Shotts, Harry Stecopoulos and the Iowa Review, Joe Tiefenthaler, Emily Cole Kelly and the Paris Review, and Stephen Elliott and The Rumpus for believing in these poems and this book and for reaching out, many, many times, on their behalf.

  Matthew Zapruder: Without that first email, and subsequent support, I’m not sure where I’d be. Thank you for sticking your neck out. It is a very fine and sturdy neck.

  Thank you Nancy Gates for being a rare bird in a tree of clones. Thank you Anthony Mattero at Foundry Media for representing the shit out of this book. Thanks Alison Granucci and everyone at Blue Flower Arts. Fuck, this is a lot of thank-yous. Okay. Thank you to everyone at Harper Perennial, to Jessica Jarmoune, and to a lady named Linda from the National Archives for aiding in the extensive research of obscure actresses for the list that appears in the Epilogue.

  Thank you Calvert Morgan, for knowing exactly what I’m capable of. Without you I would have probably ended up self-publishing this in the form of toilet paper, whiskey, and a nail gun. I guess that also would have made for a good book, but I like the one we made better.

  This book is also dedicated to David. What can I write that you don’t already know? Thank you for letting me enter into the dark without ever questioning whether I would return. I love you.

  Artwork

  Many thanks to the following artists for contributing their work:

  Sage Vaughn for Miriam Lebelle

  Sandro Kopp for Judith Barsi

  Russ Tamblyn for Peg Entwistle

  Marcel Dzama for Martha Anne Dae

  George Herms for Jayne Mansfield

  Kid Koala for Carol Landis/Anissa Jones

  Pat Hamou for Jane Doe

  Marilyn Manson for Sharon Tate

  Adrian Tomine for Jennifer Davis/Alison Andres

  Travis Louie for Dana Plato

  David Lynch for Laurel Gene

  About the Author

  Photo by Katie Jacobs

  AMBER TAMBLYN is a contributing writer for the Poetry Foundation and the author of two previous works of poetry, Free Stallion and Bang Ditto. As an actress, she has been nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and an Independent Spirit award. Her writing has appeared in Bust, Interview, Cosmopolitan, the San Francisco Chronicle, Poets & Writers, Pank, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles, California, and Brooklyn, New York.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Amber Tamblyn

  Bang Ditto

  Free Stallion: Poems

  Credits

  Cover design by Gregg Kulick / Cover art image of face © CSA Images/Archive/Getty Images

  Copyright

  DARK SPARKLER. Copyright © 2015 by Amber Tamblyn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Poems in Dark Sparkler have appeared in the following places: ”Brittany Murphy”: Pank Magazine. “Miriam Lebelle”: The Nervous Breakdown. “Bridgette Andersen,” “Shannon Michelle Wilsey,” and “Aubrey May” in H_NGM_N. “Bridgette Andersen” also appeared in Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, edited by Saul Williams (MTV Books). “Laurel Gene”: Thrush and the Iowa Review. “Li Tobler,” “Taruni Sachved,” and “Marilyn Monroe” (as “Norma Jean Mortenson”): Tuesday Journal. “Miranda Rose,” with its Sage Vaughn art, and “Miriam Labelle” and Jane Doe,” with their Pat Hamou art, in Black Tongue Review. “Sirkka Sari,” “Carole Landis,” and “Anissa Jones” in Forklift Ohio. “Judith Barsi” and “Peg Entwistle” in the Iowa Review. “Sharon Tate,” “Dana Plato,” and “Marilyn Monroe” (as “Norma Jean Mortenson”) in The Rattling Wall. “Quentin Dean” and “Untitled Actress” in the Pacific Coast Poetry Series Anthology. A portion of “Epilogue” in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series at http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem-day.

  ISBN 978-0-06-234816-6

  EPub Edition April 2015 ISBN 9780062348197

  15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  *Updated 2014: Cause of death, possible homicide by poisoning.