The fantastic, the mundane, and menstruation

In a funny, wide-ranging interview with Dorothea Lasky, Bookslut contributor Elizabeth Hildreth inquires about poetry, pointedness, even periods. (Not the punctuation.)

She quotes one of Lasky's poems, praising it for its mixture of the fantastic and mundane:

Mike, I Had An Affair

I peered into his crevices
And upon his bed I peered into more
Like the kind of things that the monsters make.
He was a monster, no
He was not a monster, Mike
His skin was soft and wild

To which Lasky points out that many things are both fantastic and mundane. Menstruation, for example. And death.

Periods are fantastic things. By fantastic, I don’t mean great, mind you. I mean fantastic like events that are seemingly otherworldy and deadpan real at the same time. I think that’s the way sex should always be written about. I think death should be written that way, too. I myself don’t know if I have written about death well -- jury’s out.