Long live poetry!

Okay,
Politics are dead and gone, right?

Okay, probably not, since we live in a democratic republic and all, but still.

So there are 9 arteests on board for the SEEKRUT LITERACHRE MAGRAZEEN.

Two novelists, a long-narrative poet (ahem), two reglar-ol' poets , a reviewer, a theorist, and two photo-graffers. Also a webstar recording guru who I hope to have contribute some songs.

At any way it will rock.

Look for a street date of Janyerry first.

W-to-the-00t!

A Freudian slip of the forked tongue

Obama:

"Let me close by saying that I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead."

The Dictionary:

"enormity, noun: an act of extreme wickedness"


How true, how true.

A 51st Post Retrospective

Reviewing American poetry, we find:

1) There are too few books of poetry sold in America.

2) Po-biz itself seems to be "healthy" and thrives in academia. Unfortunately, its main product seems not to be poetry but posturing.

3) Slam poetry also thrives, but in the ether. It's exciting in the sound but printed, falls down.

4) The two shall never meet.

5) Narrative poetry is neglected but tends to do well when it can get published, which is not often enough.

6) The number of "trained poets" is staggering.

7) They must be the only ones who buy books of poetry.

8) To solve this we should change the way we write and aggressively market poetry.

If you're someone who is satisfied with the state of American poetry and thinks we should just write for maybe 1/3 of 1% of the population, then I'm not really talking to you.

But if you think that the reading public (1/3 of America, or 100 million people) would read poetry if they could find anything good, if you're interested in expanding the readership of poetry, if you want to consider what your audience wants and deliver it to them with brilliant artistry, then I have three questions:

What have I left out?
Where am I wrong?
What do you think we can do?

Cheers for the next fitty,
Michael

#9: Visual "poetry" isn't poetry but rather the same thing as acrostics and comics -- for lack of a better term, propago.

Blog reviewer needed

Howdy all,

The upcoming mag needs a blog reviewer. Theoretically we need an online publication reviewer -- but that could be split into two people -- one for blogs and one for rags. All the writers for the mag will have their own blog where they can post such things, but I'd also like a regular feature.

If anyone is interested in committing to writing at least one review of a literary(preferably) blog or online magazine every two weeks for a pay scale that may or may not work out, let me know. Maybe you can post a sample review as a comment to this.

Thanks all!
Miguel

The State of Poetry

So this is where we stand:

empty handed.

You've got Silliman, et al bounding on about poetry that no one (or statistically no one) cares about. It's interesting, maybe it's good, maybe it's not. But no one cares, so what's the point? It's a big circle jerk.

Then you've got the Saul Williams and Def Jam poets of America. Fantastically energetic stuff that JUST DIES on the page. Dies. Is dead. Kaput. It only lives when in someone's mouth.

Why is that a problem you ask?

You'd be right to ask. You know that I view poetry as an aural art. But I consequently view written poetry like a piece of sheet music. If no one else can play your work, it's just not that important. The performer is great but the piece is irrelevant.

So I'm planning to attack this thing through a different angle. Collect a few great poets (and other writers) and collect their new work in one place. Build an audience and go from there. Which is, really, what everyone does.

So what am I doing differently?

Well it's certainly different from what's going on now. There are too many writers, too much jumble. The content in poetry magazines is so hit or miss that this obscure blog is better and more widely read than most of them.

So we pare down.

Not a bad idea. But it's only half the battle. It only proves that recognition/money can be made in this racket without the direct intervention of Universities and pass-the-hats at poetry readings. That is, that money can be made from the Word. That may be blasphemous. I dunno.

The other half of the battle is winning young readers. We need an inside person in Scholastic. They need to publish an excellent book of understandable children's verse -- or rather, tween/teen verse. They've already sort of done this with Karen Hesse, but everyone agrees that the verse is secondary/childish/crap.

Of course, I think I have a book worth publishing, but what else the hell for would I be writing this blog?

But I'd be happy to see ANY book of excellent poetry fill the hands of schoolchildren like so many copies of Harry Potter.

p.s.

Also, I need some poetry blogs to read and post to. Most of the ones I find are crap. But reading and posting will help "spread the word." Maybe I should hire Obama to do this. I hear he's quite the community organizer.

Endorsement!

So we at the Strong Verse Blog have finally come upon a candidate to endorse in the upcoming election:

Kirby Olson
of the Lutheran Surrealist Party.

Kirby's positions are ideal for a President:

"I would hate it. I would be the most shy president since Benjamin Harrison. I would never make public appearances ever! And I would do nothing at all. In fact, that's my only campaign promise.

I would do nothing at all. It's a promise.

I will continue to write entertaining blog entries, and you will get close-up photos of the White House Easter Egg rolling contest.

The only issue I have is Lyme's Disease. I will put at least fifty more trillion dollars into research on this terrible malady."

This is also partially mercenary. Kirby has offered me ambassadorships to both Barbados and the Tyrol.

Vote for whoever you want to, but if you live in a place where your vote won't count anyway (I'm talkin' to you, California and Texas) -- VOTE FOR KIRBY!

Humorless?

Read the insanity!

Yes, that's right, someone has gone to the trouble to take the Racter verse and apply it globally, or at least Silliman blogally. Some people view this as "a crime" but I think it's just silly fun. I like my "poem:"

"Mean as an initial"

though I wish it were longer. Oh well. Perhaps our length is based on our importance. If so, I hope it's a golf-score sort of thing.

WRITE WRITE WRITE!
Also, what sort of poetry/literature merch would/do you buy? T-shirts? Coffee mugs? Tell me tell me tell me.