Daryl Gussin — longtime writer, Razorcake editor, and a name tied to the DIY punk undercurrent of Los Angeles — is about to release a new poetry collection titled A Year in Submission. The title isn’t just metaphor. As he explains, “I spent several months submitting pieces of poetry to various outlets and dealt with the rejection and acceptance, mainly rejection. Then I compiled them all into a book.”
What emerged is a self-funded and self-distributed collection that leans as much on masochistic persistence as it does on the craft of writing. “Why give up when you can just keep on torturing yourself until you’re done and you have something to be proud of?” he adds. That survival instinct, the tension between self-doubt and stubborn creation, runs through every page.
There’s no careful positioning here, no appeal to the literary world’s approval. “Success is sustainability,” he says. “To make enough off this book to fund the next book.”
Gussin’s poetry exists in a space carved out between punk basements, late-night train rides, and long-standing conversations with ghosts.
It’s personal and public at once — often intimate to the point of discomfort, but never self-indulgent. “Vulnerability should definitely not be weaponized,” he says, “unless we’re all picking up weapons together and going to war with this concept of rigid unemotional manhood.”
In our conversation, we talked about poems born from dreams, from grief, and from passing thoughts that burrow too deep to ignore.
Gussin doesn’t hide the fact that some pieces push his own limits: “If something is so honest that it makes me never want to show it to anyone… I’m definitely using it.” And yet, he writes not to confess but to connect, refusing to retreat behind cleverness or intellectual armor. “Poetry doesn’t take its toll,” he shrugs. “Small talk does.”
Much of the material in A Year in Submission is shaped by Gussin’s surroundings — from LA’s raw mass transit to DIY reading nights where connection means more than likes or followers.
“People are more hungry for a different truth,” he says. “And the subversion is thriving.” There’s an instinctual understanding that art and community can’t be neatly separated — something he attributes directly to punk. Not the genre, but the foundation of self-reliance and blunt honesty that informs every poem he prints, every floor he sleeps on while on tour, and every dollar he scrapes together to fund the next round.
Read the full interview below, where we dig into grief and humor, dreams and rejection, the legacy of LA punk, the loneliness of small talk, and the joy of possums at night.
You ever feel like poetry’s just a survival instinct? Like it’s not about expression, it’s about not combusting? What kicked off A Year in Submission — was it defiance, desperation, or just boredom?
Daryl: Well, defiance, desperation, and boredom are feelings that I tend to feel on an almost hourly basis, but A Year in Submission was an experiment in rejection and acceptance, literally. I spent several months submitting pieces of poetry to various outlets and dealt with the rejection and acceptance, mainly rejection. Then I compiled them all into a book. There were many times I wanted to give up because of the overwhelming amount of rejection, but why give up when you can just keep on torturing yourself until you’re done and you have something to be proud of? Which is probably where the survival instinct comes in, these kinds of projects give me a fulfilling feeling that helps me survive. They help get me up in the morning.
There’s this gritty tenderness in your poems — like standing barefoot on broken glass but still pointing out the colors. Where does that balance come from for you? Were you always writing that way or did life kinda corner you into it?
Daryl: Very astute observation! Five years ago I definitely would not have felt this comfortable being this vulnerable in my writing, but at this point I just feel mangled to a bloody pulp and it has opened up my writing to all kinds of unnecessary oversharing. But if me being this vulnerable and unafraid to express myself makes the reader open themselves up to feelin’ the feelings, than I think that’s a good thing!
“Uncle” hits like someone trying not to cry on a bus ride home. Is legacy something that haunts you, or just one of those accidental themes that keeps bubbling up?
Daryl: I mean, if the legacy is dying young, yes, I am definitely haunted. I don’t want to die. I know it will happen, but the goal is that when it does happen people can say, “He lived a good life, had a good time, and made the most of it.”
The whole boyfriend dream sequence — it’s surreal and intimate and absurd all at once. Were those dreams real? Or were they more of a metaphorical gut-purge?
Daryl: That’s a poem that just started as a funny line that popped into my head, “I had a dream that your boyfriend said it was okay for you to cheat on him with me.” It’s like some terrible thing a guy would say at a bar. But then the excavation started and I just kept mining personal experiences and it got shaped into a bizarre poem that I imagine might rub people the wrong way, and it might even rub me the wrong way too, but I still like it ’cause it’s so fucked up. Last night I had a dream that I was in a new Richard Linklater film about kids who live in Palm Springs, that might show up in a poem soon.
You play with vulnerability like it’s a weapon. Not in a performative way, but like you know that baring your teeth sometimes means opening your chest too. Do you write to connect or to confess?
Daryl: Definitely to connect. I don’t owe anyone any of this. Vulnerability should definitely not be weaponized, that kind of defeats the purpose. Unless we’re all picking up weapons together and going to war with this concept of rigid unemotional manhood. Connection is fucking hard sometimes, maybe some people don’t need to write these weird poems and read them in front of strangers to feel it, but this is where I’ve found myself and I feel good about it.
Your poems don’t hide behind cleverness. There’s no curtain. Have you always been okay with that level of exposure, or does it take a toll?
Daryl: I like to think I’m at least kinda clever [laughs]. Maybe not a whole curtain’s worth I guess. Poetry doesn’t take its toll, small talk does.
You’ve got this sense of people existing side-by-side with their ghosts — both alive and dead. What role does memory play in how you write? Do you ever feel like you’re writing for the people who aren’t around to hear it?
Daryl: There’s always people in my head who I’m in conversation with. Whether it’s friends, family members, Donald Trump, or ex-girlfriends. That is just the truth and I’m not going to pretend like it’s not. Sorry for processing our interpersonal relationships in public! But I mean, you knew what you were getting yourself into…or maybe you didn’t and in that case I am sorry [laughs]. When writing like this though, it is important to be totally fair, or else you come off like just another jackass male poet blaming everyone else for everything with no accountability pointed inward, and I have a lot to be blamed for.
You mention trains, parties, late nights, backyard barbecues — moments where time seems to blur a bit. Are you writing in the moment, or are these snapshots stitched together from the rearview?
Daryl: These days I’m mainly writing on my phone which means I write a lot on mass transit, which is a fantastic source of inspiration because at least in Los Angeles, on a late night train, you are surrounded by raw humanity. From the young intoxicated lovers to the painfully destitute, it’s all on display, and I’m just trying to make some fucking sense of it all. But of course, writing a poem can be like going to the salad bar of your life’s experiences and gazing through the sneeze guard at all the possible shit to include. And plus all the other stuff you can just make up!
That “pile of bones” poem — man, that line about rewriting yourself so many times the truth might destroy you — that’s a hell of a thing to say out loud. Have you ever written something that made you want to burn the page after?
Daryl: That’s a line I hope doesn’t get misinterpreted. I’m talking about being internally destroyed, exposing myself to myself as a fraud on such an intimate level that I could never recover. But perhaps this is just part of the human experiences that we all are dealing with and the only option is to just accept it, shelf it, and move on with our life. If something is so honest that it makes me never want to show it to anyone…I’m definitely using it!
The world you sketch feels both doomed and worth dancing in. Do you see your work as a warning, a celebration, or just a chronicle of what’s left?
Daryl: I believe that’s all we have! I have “work” and “play” tattooed on my toes and that is how I get through it. Spend part of your day doing work for the betterment of humanity, but at a certain point know that all roads lead to annihilation so spend the rest of your day doing stuff that you enjoy and makes you happy. Even if it’s embarrassingly stupid, do what you gotta do to make yourself happy.
Okay, shifting gears a bit — what’s been lighting you up lately in your local scene? Any zines, writers, musicians, or weirdos doing work that made you feel like you weren’t alone in this mess?
Daryl: I wouldn’t be as committed to producing work if I wasn’t constantly inspired by my local community of writers. I’m not even gonna start listing them because it’s an amazing group of people, but if anyone is really curious, just look at the fliers on my instagram, and then look at the other reader’s instagrams and their fliers and just let it spread out like a spider web.
I will plug Nikolai Garcia ’cause he just released an incredible collection called All the Sad Songs. And I know Laura Sermeño and Jesse Tovar both have new work coming out. From there there’s an entire world of underground writers waiting for you.
Who’s someone you discovered in 2024/2025 that made you go: “Damn, I wish I wrote that”?
Daryl: I just finished Facundo Rompehuevos’s Children Chasing Tigers and I don’t wish I wrote it, but I was amazed that he pulled off an early 2000s gutterpunk version of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle that’s based almost entirely in the East San Fernando Valley. Good shit!
Do you feel like the DIY scene’s still capable of producing the kind of emotional truth you’re chasing? Or is it getting drowned out by the algorithm and the merch drop?
Daryl: If it’s not possible I would be the first to tell you, and I’m happy to report that as technology becomes more invasive in people’s lives, people are more hungry for a different truth, and the subversion is thriving!
What’s your relationship like with punk these days — not the genre, but the idea?
Daryl: The older I get the more sense it makes. People get stuck ’cause they don’t let go of the past, but maybe I’m too eager to let go. I have no desire to be seventeen anymore. I just want to create on my own terms and punk is my absolute foundation for that. Everything I do with poetry is 100% informed by what I’ve learned from punk. And I’m not just talking about the theoretical stuff, but the practicality of self-publishing, self-booking, being totally honest about shit, and the overall egalitarianism of community-building.
You’re putting these books out on your own terms, you’re reading in places like Beyond Baroque, you’re clearly not chasing some poetry-world approval. What does “success” even mean for a poet like you?
Daryl: To me Beyond Baroque is the epicenter of LA poetry, to have a relationship with them and be welcomed in by them means everything to me. I am largely ignorant to “poetry world,” and I think that is necessary for my continued creative output. Success is sustainability. To make enough off this book to fund the next book. With readings on this next tour, I’ve been telling the people setting up the readings that we need $50 for gas and a floor to sleep on. If we can lock that in, we’ve made it. This is poetry we’re talking about! $50?! Fuck yeah! This isn’t our jobs and if it were our jobs we would begin to resent it, and that would be antithetical. I’m not looking for another job, I’m looking for adventure to feed my soul! My soul that capitalism is actively trying to crush!
Your titles feel like little private jokes that accidentally became profound. How do you name your pieces — gut feeling, inside references, something else?
Daryl: The titles are usually just lines taken from the poem. It helps remember which ones are which. [laughs]
Last one: let’s say this new book ends up being someone’s introduction to poetry — not Ginsberg, not Bukowski, just you. What do you hope they walk away with? A bruise? A laugh? A reason to call their uncle?
Daryl: An invitation. I want them to realize they are invited to do whatever their heart desires. Maybe calibrate those expectations and figure out why you want what you want. But know that you don’t have to wait for permission. Get off the internet and get started.
