Why Graceguts?

“let’s start a magazine

to hell with literature

we want something redblooded

lousy with pure

reeking with stark

and fearlessly obscene

but really clean

get what I mean

let’s not spoil it

let’s make it serious

something authentic and delirious

you know something genuine like a mark

in a toilet

graced with guts and gutted

with grace”

squeeze your nuts and open your face

        —E. E. Cummings, No Thanks (1935)

See also “How Graceguts Got Started.” I have also become aware more recently of a quote from Ernest Hemingway, who said “By ‘guts’ I mean, grace under pressure.”       +