Write2Die Why you should read their poetry and love it.
by Amy

---Charles Bukowski wrote that writing chooses you, you don’t choose writing. After meeting Steve Barker and Brian McGuigan of Write2Die, this comes to mind. They are passionate, modest and ambitious with their writing. I was impressed when I first met them, no signs of clichéd poets. Just two guys, a Canadian and a New Yorker, almost an unlikely pair, who love to write poetry, and they’re damn good at it. ---They met three years ago while attending Chapman University in Orange, California during a poetry workshop. With Ruben Casas (still in California) they formed Write2Die Poets and have been publishing and distributing their own chapbooks since. ---After the trio was set, they would workshop their poetry several nights a week. Their poetry writing and workshop sessions then spilled into Steve and Brian’s Bio 101 class. According to Steve, it was a miracle that Brian had passed, since Steve had to take the class again. They’re in Seattle now and hell-bent on getting people to read their work, leaving their chapbooks at bus stops and in public restrooms on the back of the toilets. The best spots they could think of to get people to read. ---One day, when they were on Capitol Hill’s Broadway, passing out their chapbook titled, “Unemployed College Grads Don’t Want To Join Corporate World. All Donations Help” a girl gave them four dollars, minimal, but their first income from their poetry. They’ll tell you sincerely though; they’re not in it for the money. ---When writers are straining to self-publish, Steve and Brian happily put on a good CD and staple their photocopied pages of poetry with a long armed stapler borrowed from Brian’s girlfriends work. The stapling is never monotonous for them, Brian feels that stapling each one creates more of a relationship with their work and the most important thing to them is to have people read their poetry. He compares creating their chapbooks to having a child; he made it and can feel it take a life of its own. ---Brian claims Raymond Carver as his biggest influence, for Steve it’s Bukowski. When Steve discovered Bukowski, he realized then that poetry didn’t have to be all about flowers and he was hooked. He was the first poet that gave him the feeling that he could do it himself and people would care ---As it states on every chapbook, “Write2Die is an assemblage of writers and poets interested in the advancement of the writing craft. We dedicate ourselves with what we do, placing pen to wrist in the pursuit of creative elevation. We write to die.” The name Write2Die came from a poem that Steve wrote during a workshop, born from a line “place pen to wrist”. ---Their future is bright because of their efforts: pounding the streets, writing away, blinded not by what the world might think but what they can’t imagine living without. Aside from their own writing and publishing ventures, they someday hope to be able to publish other writers. They want to create a dedicated writing community here in Seattle. They want strength in numbers. ---Finding people who are passionate while maintaining modesty is a rare find. They only want to write and continuously grow with it. They want you to read it and regardless of what you have to say about it, they want to hear it. Read them, critique them or join forces with them. Any way you go, you won’t be disappointed. Write2Die are always looking for feedback, contact them at: www.write2die.com

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