Just Like I Like It
In JUST LIKE I LIKE IT, Danielle LaFrance combines poetry and autotheory as a means of targeting ideological infatuation, spilling into an obsession with ideological abolishment. JUST LIKE I LIKE IT searches for ways to kill and abolish "it," seeking means to get it done right, even when attempted slowly and stupidly, even if the only way out is death. LaFrance draws on stupidity, sadomasochism, pretend power, parasitism, and violent revolutionary desubjectification to shape a felt experience, not so much asking as inhabiting a series of questions, including: "What are the implications of abolishing the self as it is racialized, gendered, and classed?" and "Can a theoretical framework hold every contradiction in tandem when every contradiction is substantial and felt?" Each page of JUST LIKE I LIKE IT pokes "it" awake all over again, culminating in a number of accomplished failures, including "It Makes Me Iliad," a reworking of Homer’s Iliad. Poetry, it seems, is the best weapon for wiping it out with fewer casualties – which is why it is never enough.
DANIELLE LAFRANCE LIVES ON OCCUPIED AND STOLEN LANDS CARED FOR BY THE XʷMƏΘKʷƏY̓ƏM, SḴWX̱WÚ7MESH, AND SELILWITULH peoples. LAFRANCE COMES FROM GREEK AND DUTCH ANCESTRY, AND IS LEARNING WHERE THE FRENCH CANADIAN RELATIVES CAME FROM. FOLLOWING THE WOULD-BE POETICS MAPPED IN JUST LIKE I LIKE IT (TALONBOOKS 2019), LAFRANCE ARRIVES AT READING AND WRITING FROM A POSITION KNOWING ILLUSIONS ARE DESTROYED. LAFRANCE’S RECENT POETRY PROJECT #POSTDILDO THINKS AND ACTS THROUGH FANTASY, RAPE CULTURE, MODES OF COMMUNICATION, YEARNINGS, AFTERMATHS, AND LOST IDEAS. MUCH ANIMAL LOVE. LAFRANCE MAKES MONEY AS A COMMUNITY LIBRARIAN AND FROM SIDE HUSTLES. WITH ANAHITA JAMALI RAD, LAFRANCE CO-EDITED THE JOURNAL AND DISCUSSION SERIES ABOUT A BICYCLE, OF WHICH THERE WERE 5 ISSUES. LAFRANCE AUTHORS FRIENDLY + FIRE (TALONBOOKS 2016) AND SPECIES BRANDING (CAPILANO UNIVERSITY EDITIONS 2010). LAFRANCE INVESTS IN LISTENING AND/OR ADDRESSING AND/OR RESPONDING TO THE RADICAL ROOT OF THINGS.
