Ponk!

A punk rock anti-memoir told through the eyes of a biracial Afrolatino punk academic.

PÓNK! follows Moose, an alienated academic and lead guitarist for Pipebomb!, as he navigates through spaces in and out of South East Los Angeles: punk clubs, college classrooms, family gatherings, street protests, and euphoric backyard shows.

Oscillating between autofiction, memoir, and lyric, Clayton blurs genres while articulating the layered effects of racism, trauma, immigration, policing, Black hair, performance, and toxic academic language to uncover how one truly becomes an ＂ally.＂ Borrowing from the spatial lyricism of Claudia Rankine, the genre-bending storytelling of Alexander Chee, and the racial musings of James Baldwin, PÓNK!’s narrative takes back punk rock and finds safe space in the mosh pit.

Marcus Clayton is a multigenre Afrolatino writer from South Gate, CA, with an M.F.A. in Poetry from CSU Long Beach. Currently, he pursues a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, focusing on intersections between Latinx literature, Black literature, Decolonization, and Punk Rock. Through Glass Poetry Press, he has a poetry chapbook, Nurture the Open Wounds. Current and forthcoming publications include Indiana Review, Apogee Journal, Passages North, Black Punk Now!, and The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock.