Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brett Underwood. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Brett thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I started writing high school sports when I was an Illinois “country boy” teenager at the urging of my Father who was a teacher, writer and historian who read Mark Twain to us via lamplight when the power went out during harsh winters. Lots of other reading, too.
I was a skinny kid with a fastball, but when I injured my elbow in junior college, I was less interested in the mound and more interested in other opportunities and the characters. There were plenty of those in the dugouts, but when I moved on to attend Saint Louis University (I really just wanted to live in St. Louis and their team was horrible, so I was able to gain a spot on the team, but…still injured despite the efforts of a very able Physical Therapy staff. so spending more time in the “trainer’s room” than on the field), I met guys and gals with other fun on their minds. That did not bide well for my academics, journal entries and letter writing to relatives. I met guys from both coasts and around the Midwest who were interested in movies, vinyl and punk rock. I did have an incredible prof there. He turned us on to great film and writing and shared our interests in the absurd. Avis Meyer. Sing his name! He was our advisor on the SLU newspaper, SLU NEWS, and the editor and I were into satire and National Lampoon. We did an April Fool’s edition. I wasn’t skilled, ballsy or experienced enough to pull off real comedy and remained distracted for many years. I never landed in a profession that would satisfy, so “dropped out” and joined the service industry. Met more artists and writers. Began writing for the weekly in St. Louis, the Riverfront Times, and interviewed a guy who ran a Zen writer’s workshop. I had heard and read the Beats, but a couple exercises with that group led to more freewriting and journaling of another sort.
Soon, I was led to nights in pubs and cafes, where I heard and saw poets and poetic/lyrical musicians. We had an icredible local, listener-sponsored radio station here, KDHX. I got to know some folks and was offered a late-night spot during which I played free form, mixing music with poets like Bukowski.
I was offered a spot reading Buk at an event called Day of the Dead Beats, an annual event on the Day of the Dead celebrating Beat poetry. I eventually inherited the event. Hosted and produced it for a few years, meeting such luminaries as K. Curtis Lyle, Aaron Belz, Michael Castro and lots of other enthusiasts.
I heard the messages and found “my voice”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Brett Lars Underwood is a broke-ass St. Louis poet and promoter of happenings and mishaps. He is the author of MUSH (Spartan Press, 2018) and MUSHARONA (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2020) and the soon to be published GATEWAY TO MUSH (Spartan Press Autumn/Summer 2024).
Descriptions of my work:
“”Like Dylan in Boots of Spanish Leather, Brett Underwood is a story and a story teller. He is a myth-maker showing us over and over how to lean into sadness and EXIST. Reading MUSHARONA, I am sure Brett Lars Underwood wrote it as the account of a life lived and simultaneously wrote it only for me.” Paul Koniecki, poet, raconteur, roust-a-bout
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——On MUSH:
“”If you’re interested in confronting an inheritor of subtle surrealism and magical Beat writing you need to read Mush by Brett Lars Underwood. He’s a great St Louis fixture and his writing possesses that rare quality: it’s fun. Whether he’s channeling Dylan Thomas or Cummings with his original wordplay you can count on the fact that the poems will be discursive and bawdy. Buy this one!”
Matthew Scott Freeman, author of Trying to Take a Nap (KATTYWAMPUS PRESS, 2017)

::::::::::::::::::::::::On MUSHARONA::::::::::::
“So many local ghosts haunt Brett’s poetry that I can’t think of St. Louis without thinking of him. He’s our true Beat, revved up for 2021, and he’s got that lyrical style we’ve come to count on. Settle in and hear what he has to say.”
Matthew Scott Freeman, author of Trying to Take a Nap (Kattywampus press, 2017) and IDEAS AND REFERENCE AT JESUIT HALL ( Coffee House Press, 2020)

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“Yesterday I came across a local author whose book belongs on it’s own display shelf at the entrance of a Barnes & Noble.
The cover alone is worth the price of admission to the consciousness of Brett Lars Underwood. It really is a piece of Contemporary Art that reflects the shit storm of our time. And its fun to look at for sure.
But what’s even more fun for the intelligent yet sophomoric reader is the way in which Underwood seemingly has the ability to not only make you laugh your ass off but make you feel small in a way that it makes you feel as though you have a powerlifters clenched fist hanging on to your heart with all of his strength.
In many ways you feel like, “the priest who is discovering Punk”, for the first time when reading Underwood’s poetic speakers. His syntax is filled with an Earnest wisdom that is exceedingly rare in the contemporary maker of poems. He makes you bring all of the sordid chaos of your life to the forefront of your thinking.
In one passage Underwood writes:
It wasn’t always like this: your mind: scrambled eggs with ketchup. At times when you were alive and sure of it, your senses were on fire. You pulled off the highway just as they were dulled and found the perfect place to do what humans do. And you did.
Similarly, Underwoodーwith a repetition that really does sing on the page instead of demanding to be read the way you would read a novel or an essayーhas a way of making you consider that for some people sadness does not fade away.
“Sadness steals the dream,” he writes. “Sadness splits a seam/ Sadness in the sack… Sadness pays the bills/ Sadness takes another sip… Sadness makes the kills.”
Underwood is not trying to sell you any bullshit. He motivates you to think about the ugliness and make you laugh harder than you ever have in your life. I’ve left out the funny bits intentionally because those need to be paid for. A sentiment in the end that the author would want to impart is that you should not be waiting around for Nirvana to pay your bills. Get it.”
Matthew Cooper, author of WE ’til DEATH DO PART ( Spartan Press, 2021)”
Willing to expand, but did I answer some of these questions in the previous answers?

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I have been at the promotion game for a bit. I used to say that I wanted people to avoid being “drugless, home addicts”, that is: GET OUT and experience all that St. Louis has to offer. Don’t die on your futon watching the digital world go by. I was a luddite for many years. I didn’t have a “smartphone” until Covid. Covid threw a wrench in that plan, to a larger extent and now I am forced to work odd jobs to pay the bills after having a voice on KDHX and at the Schlafly Tap Room, where I booked events and promoted others.
Still, I aim to get people out to see, hear, relate and participate in art, theatre, poetry, music, but can’t make it out some nights.
My goal? To continue to relate with stellar human beings and artist.
Also, I’ve been hosting a podcast: HIGH ABOVE GRAND. I interview other St. Louis poets to get their stories and poetry.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Who wants to die bored and boring? Secure?
Plenty of people?
Do they know it?
Of course, they don’t want to die bored. Security, though.
Can we create when comfortable?
Artistic endeavors in my world typically end in financial failure.
Keeping to the creative side keeps me from wasting time in the attempts of making money which I don’t need. I don’t have much money to produce. No budget means no conflicts?
I have learned the equation: free time.
“A Room of One’s Own”
Make the space to create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://horseycantswim.bandcamp.com/album/horsey-can-t-swim-a-love-letter-to-brett-underwood
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brettlarsunderwood/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brett.underwood.5095/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-underwood-4821ba11/
• Twitter: Ha!
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brettlarsunderwood
• Yelp: Fuck Yelp
• Soundcloud: nope
• Other: Have appeared on some albums with THE PAT SAJAK ASSASSINS https://patsajakassassins.bandcamp.com/track/agent-underwood

Image Credits

Jim Z McGowin took this picture and I have his permission to use it.