Gillian McCain is the author of two books of poetry, Tilt and Religion and co-author of Descent of the Dolls. With Legs McNeil she co-wrote Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk and co-edited Dear Nobody: The True Story of Mary Rose. She is the former Program Coordinator and Board President of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. She lives in New York City.
PLEASE KILL ME TURNS 20! (PORTLAND MERCURY)
IF YOU’VE READ it, you probably remember exactly where you were when you first encountered Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. I first came across the book as a 16-year-old kid in a small town in southwestern Colorado. I’d recently discovered punk, and went about putting safety pins in my clothes and calling myself a punk, but for all I knew, punk rock began and ended with the Sex Pistols. When I found Please Kill Me on the shelf of the local bookstore, I bought it without question, expecting mohawks and mosh pits. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
