Bristol Noir Magazine: Scott C. Holstad’s “Once, the Meek Died Young”

I have a long new poem titled “Once, the Meek Died Young” up today in the March 10, 2025 issue of Bristol Noir: Curiously Dark Fiction. I think this may be the 5th piece of mine they’ve published in the past year and I’m thrilled their editor seems to like my stuff because it’s one of my very favorite magazines that I both love to read and appreciate when they publish me.

I’m also happy because I wrote it just last month, on February 1, after a conscious decision a couple of months before to revisit some of my roots in theme, style, form, etc., especially in more experimental work and more like this, a type of poem/story I felt really comfortable with and that I think read well. I draw from a lot of my own experiences in pieces like this and for those unfamiliar with with streets and landmarks I often reference in such works, Indian School and 27th Avenue comprise an infamous juncture in Phoenix AZ — look it up. I lived on Indian School and 7th Avenue for a couple of years, which had its own hidden charms. Heh. When I write about living or traveling on Orange Avenue in Long Beach (I think I wrote a piece called 4th and Orange or something similar decades ago), I don’t have to do “research” or look stuff up. Orange was badass (not that I knew it when I moved there). The three most violent gangs in Long Beach shared Orange Avenue, so when traveling from 1st to 32nd, I’d have to go through the territory of the East Side Longos (ESL13), a Mexican Sureno gang at war with seemingly everyone, next to the Rollin 20s Crips (RTC – Snoop Dog’s old set), next to their biggest rival, the Long Beach Insane Crips (IC). I didn’t stop at many of the stop signs on that stretch. Moved to Koreatown later and landed between MS-13 and Barrio 18 (the 18th Street gang). I had a knack.

Phoenix was interesting because Central Avenue divided the long downtown area of America’s 5th largest city and generally, if you lived to the east of Central, on or around a numbered road that ended in “Street” (7th Street), you were in good or safe territory, but if you lived or traveled west of Central, you were in the land of roads named Avenue (7th Avenue, 27th Avenue), and you were thought to be waist-deep in hookers, bangers, taggers and every other kind of creep most wanted to avoid. I think that was a generalized stereotype and with the explosive growth of sports-centered west Phoenix suburbs like Glendale, I doubt it’s exactly the same, but I do think 27th Ave and Indian School, 7th Ave and Indian School and some of the other old places retain their original vitality.

So in 1990, 1992, 1994, the kids weren’t out. They were dead or dying and things seemed insane at the time. Of course, it was impossible to look ahead to the 2020s but everyone has their experiences, everyone has their stories. I have millions of them, many good, some bad, most in-between. This was and remains but one aspect of those. Many of my old, out of print books present others. Thanks for sharing it with me.

— Scott

“Once, the Meek Died Young“