Tuff Gnarl, Part 2: Poems

"A full-volume detonation that lives in the charged space where poems and songs start to blur." —Peter Gizzi, author of Fierce Elegy

SINCE THE EARLY 1980S, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Mike Watt (Minutemen) have shared a wild ride through the lightning fields of American underground rock. Moore, a founder of New York City art-rock trailblazers Sonic Youth, was a fierce enthusiast of Watt’s politically astute postpunk trio, the Minutemen, leading to a decades-long kinship across coasts. The two quickly became brothers-in-arms after meeting in Hollywood and rapping with each other about Richard Hell.

More than forty years later, Moore approached Watt with a new idea: a poetic collaboration. Recognizing the idiosyncrasy and artful wordplay throughout the history of Watt’s lyric writing, Moore realized such a collaboration could potentially exact a curious mixture of dialogue and magic.

Watt requested titling the tome Tuff Gnarl, Part 2, as the Sonic Youth song “Tuff Gnarl” encapsulated the economy and evocation Watt admired and sought in inventive rock lyricism. The “Part 2” aspect is in playful reference to such songs as the Minutemen’s “History Lesson, Part 2” as well as to this book’s Socratic construction, wherein Moore wrote the beginning of each poem (Part 1), and Watt echoed and expanded upon them as each poem continued (Part 2).

The resulting collection is a testament to trust and the unspoken bond of respect. Across eighty-eight pieces, Moore and Watt engage in a creative jousting that ranges from the contemplative to the absurd, from inside intimacies and humorous nudges to the confessional and the experimental. Tuff Gnarl, Part 2 is a raw, invigorating dialogue between two legends, bridging the fertile ground between inventive rock lyricism and the avant-garde of modern poetry.