Brice Maiurro and I wrap up our interview at the Mutiny Information Cafe right as that night’s Punketry 6th Anniversary event begins. We happen to be sitting at the table with the chess board and, as Black Market Translation (or maybe should I say BMT+ cuz that night they include Alex White on tuba, Squidds Madden on saxophone, and John Rasmussen on flute) kicks into their ambient noise-rock, and host Sarah Rodriguez announces the first feature of the evening – Eli Whittington, Brice gestures at the board and asks if I want to play him. 

“I, uh, haven’t in years…” I say but accept the match anyway. 

I suppose my initial intention for this piece was to do some more personal shadow-work on my envy for the success of other local writers. And Denver poet, publisher, and organizer Brice Maiurro has been on my shortlist to cover/reckon with since I revived the Boulder Poetry Scene project last summer. I’ve been an observer of his rise on the local scene since the mid-20teens, which has included becoming editor for Punch Drunk Press, co-founder of Punketry, editor of South Broadway Ghost Society, host of the Snap Crackle Pop Second Sunday morning reading at Mutiny, as well as published author of several books of poetry including The Heart Is an Undertaker Bee (recently released from Beulah, Colorado’s Middle Creek Publishing). Maiurro, who always comes across as very warm and humble, is also very well liked and respected by so many poets in the local scene and beyond. I perceive him as achieving things that I’ve wanted/felt deserving of, but haven’t quite been able to on that level. Instead of getting frustrated or down about it, which I’ve been inclined to in the past, I wanted to flip the script in my head, get real about my own shortcomings, celebrate his accomplishments, and see what I could possibly learn from him. I mean, aside from some friendly chit chat at an event here or there, I had never really reached out to get to know him. So we arranged to meet up at Mutiny before Punketry that night. 

“I forget which color goes first,” I say. 

Brice hides a pawn of each color in his closed palms and asks me to pick one. I point to the hand that is revealed to be white, his color. He moves one of his pawns two spaces forward. 

Maiurro grew up in Lakewood, Colorado and started attending poetry readings at the Mercury Cafe when he was around 19. He was mostly just watching and admiring others at first, but eventually, after following a ‘gut feeling’ to leave his job and move to South Broadway in Denver, he started to put his own work out into the world, and ultimately others as well thru the reading series/press, Punch Drunk. At the Full Moon Reading one snowy December night he also connected with Boulder poets Eric Fischman and Matt Clifford, which led to their collaboration on Punketry. 

I’m not really paying attention to Brice’s moves, so much as thinking about my own. My moves, tho, don’t really follow any kind of strategy. I’m just placing the pieces in random positions based on what feels pleasing at that moment. I take the Knight out early, cuz I like how it has the most idiosyncratic movement; everyone else goes straight (forward, sideways, or diagonally) but the Knight weirdly gets to go over and up or up and over. I move it around the board like it’s a spectator, just kinduv leisurely checking things out. Brice takes my Knight with his Bishop. 

Maiurro is candid about some of the ego-hiccups he’s gone thru along the way. He speaks about eventually having to step back from Punch Drunk due to burnout from his ‘insatiable need’ to keep doing more for external validation, and the resulting loneliness. He acknowledges, “That’s the ego speaking… It wasn’t real.” After taking a few weeks to collect himself, getting into a goth phase of paganism, witchcraft, and tarot, he rebooted as South Broadway Ghost Society, an online journal whose contributors were initially anonymous. 

Somehow Brice’s Bishop already has a direct diagonal line to my King… check. 

“Ha,” I shake my head, “it’s like I’m moving my pieces on your behalf.”

South Broadway Press is now thriving, regularly featuring work from not just local Denver area writers but nationally as well. Maiurro no longer has to run it all himself either, expanding to a team of 6-7 editors, which is more sustainable. “I’ve got my life to live and I can’t be at the computer everyday posting poems and stuff,” he says. “It can be tough to give up control, but I find when I get over myself is when something beautiful comes out.” He notes in particular the efforts of editor Josh Gaytos to keep things running smoothly. 

The only move I have is to block his Bishop with my Rook. His Bishop then takes my Rook, before I take his Bishop with a Pawn. The threat is resolved, but it costs me two pieces. 

“I’ve always played chess like an artist,” I grumble. “I go by what feels right aesthetically and don’t tend to think very far ahead.” 

Brice smiles and nods and moves his next piece. 

Maiurro describes his process of connecting with those in the literary world as “pretty organic,” getting to know writers in other cities when he visits, and meeting writers when they come thru Denver. He doesn’t view himself as as much of a ‘scenester’ anymore. “I’m a guy with a wife and dog who enjoys putting out books and enjoys hosting an open mic and an online journal… and it feels like these days I’ve settled in a really good balance.”

But he does do a fair bit of literary-connecting online and commits to submitting much of his work, crediting his ADHD ‘race car’ mind and ‘a neurotic process’ which includes organizing notes on a jam board. His approach to submission is not to keep going after bigger and more prestigious publications, but rather to “submit to a place you want to have a relationship with.” He finds things that are local or that seem cool to be “more fulfilling than climbing the ladder.” The result is also “planting a lot of seeds,” which end up sprouting and blooming for Maiurro in the form of cool engagements and opportunities, such as reading at a Tupelo Press event in Seattle at this year’s AWP, or collaborating with aerialists at Boulder’s Dairy Center this spring.  

“Who’s winning?” Maggie Saunders, one of that night’s Punketry features, asks over my shoulder. 

“He is,” I say. 

“Yes,” Brice says, “but Jonathan’s pieces are beautifully arranged.” 

Maiurro’s latest poetry book The Heart Is an Undertaker Bee is now available from Middle Creek Publishing and will have its official release event at Mutiny on July 7. The book is ‘very nature informed’ in contrast to his earlier more “city energy, punk rock energy” work, and is inspired in part by getting into Mary Oliver’s poetry during the pandemic. While still containing “a dose of surrealism and humor,” it matches the environmentally conscious vibes of its publisher and is mostly confessional, focusing on place, Colorado, and the Southwest. It “feels like a poetry collection for my 30s,” Maiurro says. “I’ve always had an anxiety that I couldn’t write a cohesive collection… maybe slowing down in my life a little bit I kind of accidentally did write a cohesive collection that I’m really proud of.” 

At some point the loud intensity of Punketry demands our attention, and we stop formally playing. Between readers I look over and notice Brice has playfully clumped some of his pieces together in a formation like they’re marching forward together. 

Maiurro has noticed a lot of energy in the current local lit scene, mentioning the number of events on Boulder Poetry Scene Calendar. The word he uses to describe the post-Covid spirit is “Rumspringa,” Amish culture’s year of experiencing the outside world, noting that people seem more willing to put themselves out there and start things, especially stuff that intersects with other arts, for example drag or burlesque. He is delighted by how much of it is driven by the younger generation and finds it “really validating that poetry continues around us.” 

I then clump all my pieces together in a disorganized mass in the center of the board, except the King, who sits alone in the back corner. 

Maiurro’s advice for younger poets is that “doing things in your community (whatever you define as your community) is incredibly valuable and more sustainable than trying to be the biggest thing ever.” He believes that it is more important and fulfilling to take care of people around you. 

We start creating chess piece formations together. A semicircle of white pieces next to black pieces. Pawns on top of Rooks. Kings laying down beneath Queens. The squares on the board are rendered meaningless, as we take in the rest of the show, proud of how our community continues to grow and strengthen.  

I guess this is the part where I should include a final reflection on what I learned from Brice, and how I might continue to adjust my perspective going forward, but I think I’m actually starting to get bored writing these reconciling-with-envy pieces. I’m getting bored with my condemnation of my own ego bullshit and struggling to twist my way out of it somehow. Yes, the truth is I’ve often felt entitled to success without trying very hard, and I’m also often socially aloof, and Brice is not so much like that, and it’s been to his advantage. Ok, there.

But what’s most interesting to me at this moment is not anything he said or any comparison to my own experience (although he certainly gave a lot of useful advice that could really apply to me and others), but rather our silly little chess match. Reading over my descriptions I’m wondering if there might be some kind of allegory to be drawn from it, but I don’t know; I think I just appreciate it as a genuine moment of connection with someone. I probably don’t allow myself to do things like that enough. Even tho it seems to be the basis for a healthy literary (and just-in-general) life. All this stressing and overcomplicating we do, when the realest stuff quite possibly lies in small, simple, effortless moments like this. 

Anyway, come see Brice’s release tonight at Mercury, and here’s where you can order his new book!

---

Jonathan Bluebird Montgomery is the creator and Editor-in-Chief of Boulder Poetry Scene. The author of Pizzas and Mermaid, The Reality Traveler, and the recently released Nine Books (at Once!), he’s been on the Boulder poetry scene since he first came to get his MFA at Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School in 2003. You can find more of his work at jonathanbluebirdmontgomery.com