In "Meta-Dawg," Bean Newton completely assumes the character of Whip Shitback. This is a representative sample of a series of Whip Shitback poems that were not attributed to Newton in the journals in which they appeared, Glib and, most notably Tongue in the late 1990s. The implication is that Newton was going to shift entirely to writing under pseudonyms, but his death, shortly after the publication of this series, leaves that in question.
Newton's motivations for such a move can only be speculated upon: a practical direction presaging re-engagement with the more sensitive academic world and away from the more tolerant realm of floor-tech? A need to expand the complexity of characterization in the speakers of his poems? An artistic shedding of his actual identity as a form of pyscho-social dissociation? The reader is invited to elect herself judge. -- E.W. Wilder
Meta-Dawg
From The Gracile Pixies of Whip Shitback
Turning concerns the loafstyle choice,
a derivation of the hopped-up species of Gleng.
Plastic shins shatter for shit, not unlike
neon's pop and whine. The wine beyond speciation
squeaks Darwin to extremity, chokes
on the hackles of that line. The conch-shells on your belt's
black highway snuffer diesel-stank. I drank
the whorey water that seeps, the sprigs
inflected with pale, blond fish. The West Englishes
dirt allover tar-nation; Miss Rube's tattooze
and everything, the sprawl of guyz in golf shirts
deserting spit and shire of blax in seepia movies—compliance
with chases of creeping contempt. We're the assend of Reno's
casino effluvium, eff-heavy the portage over scandal and convertible
cliché: steel-heavy and steer-light, a Chevy-god high-bred,
I-con splatting unction over mineral prestige: "God blest
This 6,000 y/o desert with million-dollar sulphur," meteorphic
for all's-swell that ends. With God's wile (or will
He
release the Kraken
to the thrill splenetic, dodgers of en-wii,
gap-toothed mustard-girl. Grins won't save
the gay paper.