Art of the Memoir

Feature

AUTHENTICITY AND ART

In the insane new world of Artificial Intelligence and everything fake, we at New Pop Lit believe the proper response to tech insanity is to embrace the natural and real– including real-world experience, and writing based on real-world experience. As exemplified by our new feature,“The Big Time” by Bob Bozic, a chapter from Bob’s memoir, Still On My Feet. Few people have had as varied and tumultuous a life as Bob– including homelessness, hospital stays, world travels, bartending, and as the featured chapter describes, boxing. Tough, atmospheric reality. We know you’ll enjoy reading it.

By 6:45, Bev returned. After ensuring I had all my fight gear—boxing shoes, sweat socks, shorts, jockstrap, protective cup for the groin, and two mouthpieces (in case one got lost)—we made our way to the Garden. At the back entrance on Eighth Avenue, the bookies’ betting line on Chuvalo remained at 3-1, but the line on my fight had tightened slightly to 8-5. This led me to wonder if Bertie had placed a bet on me through a connection, possibly shortening the odds. I mentioned this to Bev while changing into my fight gear, to which he responded typically, furrowing his brow as he admonished, “This has got nothing to do with us.”

(Featured painting: “Dempsey and Firpo” by American “Ashcan” painter George Bellows.)

Canadian-Americans

Essay

NEW POP LIT’S EDITORS grew up in the Detroit area and have lived in and around the city– usually close to the Detroit River– much of our lives. Our current residence-headquarters is in Wyandotte, Michigan, which rests on the river, directly across from Canada. We were and are influenced by Canadian radio and television– we still listen regularly to CBC Radio– in the same way many Canadians are influenced by American culture. And of course, many of those who live and work in Detroit and throughout Michigan are from Canada.

Which is our way of introducing our new feature, creative non-fiction by essayist David Wayne Stewart, “New to Class”— which tells his own story as a kind of vagabond moving back and forth throughout Canada but never completely belonging, before ending up in the United States. California, specifically. A story of adjusting, trying to fit in, as all of us continually are adjusting and fitting in, finding roots, identities– or at least experiences– along the way.

Charlie and I stepped out of an underground parking garage and into the bright urban sunshine. After a five-hour drive from Montreal, we had arrived at the final stop on our father-son tour of Central Canada: the sprawling city of Toronto. As a steel door clanged behind us, I squinted up to read the street sign: Yonge Street. Locals call it “the longest street in the world”. Even now it was pulsing with neon lights, fancy cars, and loud music.

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(ALSO: Check out our new Report at the NPL News blog about latest happenings on the AI front!)

February Fiction

Pop Lit Fiction

CREATIVITY: What is it? Sometimes it’s presenting a new way of looking at things, a new angle, new viewpoints. Merging genres or mixing styles. Or contrasting, as with our new feature story– “Molasses” by Bud Sturguess— comedy and tragedy. A look at the Titan submersible disaster of 2023 and reactions to it. The story is really about: us. Humanity, with all our flaws, quirks, ambitions and foolhardiness which make us the unique– or uniquely foolish– creatures we are.

Creativity is the goal of this project. Which means offering entertainment to readers, but at the same time, varied vantage points on art, life, writing. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the story!

Whenever I heard of the Great Molasses Flood, I used to grin and think, “how do you not outrun molasses?” It must have looked like a scene from Ghostbusters II, the evil slime oozing down streets and tunnels. I mean, molasses is used as a metaphor for slowness; how could anybody fail to escape a “flood” of it? Or did big fat globs of syrup rain down from the sky and trap whoever they landed on, like a mosquito in an amber fossil?

XXX

ON OTHER FRONTS, we hope to soon revive our Open Mic blog, with new ideas planned for it. In the meantime, we’re offering a short, energetic piece of music there by Ben Macnair: “Fat Chaffinch.” A signal of the energy which will be coming to this site.

About Style

Announcement

A state of mind. An agenda. A program. A manifesto. An expression of self. An expression, perhaps, of a potential new literary movement.

WHEN’S the last time the literary world had real style?

painting by Thomas Phillips

Byron had style. Lord Byron. Sounds like the name of a WWE wrestling star.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their Lost Generation friend Ernest Hemingway had style, in their persons and prose. They influenced entire generations of American writers.

Jack Kerouac and the Beats had style. Their look, swagger, words, ideas created a cool subculture and gave business to burgeoning coffee shops, nascent venues for poetic musical talents like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith.

WHO among writers today has real style? Not affected pretentious overwrought “style” in their workshopped too-literary words. Style instead in their person, swag, attitude– a vibe projected in their look and their writing and in every part of their being.

We’re looking for style, because we know those who have it will revolutionize today’s literary scene.

ALSO: KEEP UP on what’s happening at Fast Pop Lit. Coming soon: Part IV of our “What’s Wrong with American Literature?” series.

AND– If you haven’t already, please sign the “Save the Writer!” petition to protect writers and readers. Thanks!

2024: A New Start?

Announcement

EVERY NEW YEAR is a chance for a fresh start. A do-over. An opportunity to this time get things right. Which is the attitude we’re bringing into 2024. Our goal: to punch a hole through the curtain of today’s culture and jump through it.

Only one strategy will work: totally revamped literary art. This will include a sea change in how people view fiction and poetry. New standards. New canons. The only path forward. Let’s make 2024 a year to remember.

Goodbye 2023!

Announcement

NO DOUBT 2023 was a tough year for everyone except a handful of tech billionaires who gathered enormous wealth–

— but we got through it, which is what counts. In so doing, at New Pop Lit we published a variety of sterling work, fiction and poetry both. In our admittedly biased opinion, some of the best writing to be found anywhere. Doubt this? Then click onto our “TOP OF THE POP” page and browse around. READ some of the stories and poems. They fit our goal of being readable and striking.

WHAT ELSE were we up to in 2023? For one, our “Save the Writer!” petition, which has us standing at the forefront among literary people in questioning the dubious benefits of Artificial Intelligence. If you have not yet signed the petition– you should.

WE ALSO began a new page at our site, Fast Pop Lit— a site within a site, really– for posting shorter work much faster than we can put up our longer features. Also, as a way to promote those writers we do feature at our main site. Plus, it’s as striking looking as any literary site out there– a reflection of our intention to be not just one more literary mag. Previews, interviews, commentary, satires– with much more to come. Check it out!

Then stay tuned for a lot more to come in 2024.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Announcement

ANOTHER Christmas? They have a way of sneaking up on us with all that comes with them– songs, gifts, joy, cards; how many days off from unliked jobs? Unforeseen mailings of chocolate the best part. Maybe, in this year of wars and turmoil, reflection on what this holiday is supposed to be about: Peace On Earth, not running about in shopping malls or making hurried orders care of Amazon or Walmart. The Wise Men carried gifts, but when all is said and done– guided by a star, in tune with the universe– they were likely far wiser than us.

We wish Happy Holidays to one and all!

-Karl and Kathleen

The Search for New Writers

Pop Lit Fiction

WE MAKE NO SECRET of the fact that as a literary project we look for writing talent. Talent not of the approved predictable “literary” variety– we’re not out to be the next The New Yorker or Paris Review. Instead, talent with an edge to it– and which shows hints of openings toward new viewpoints or new directions.

For our final feature of 2023 we present one such story, “Straight and Narrow” by Joshua Vigil. Click on, plunge in and see what you think.

She lived in a gated community with low hanging fronds that draped every door in fit boxes of shade. The bell clanged an unlovely sound. But she was graceful in how she opened it. Taking a step back. Scrutinizing me for a split second before deciding that yes, I would do. I felt my worth, and I strolled in with some misplaced confidence, leaving the perfect fronds and the perfect shade for the giddy unknown.

What Will New Fiction Look Like?

Pop Lit Fiction

FOR US, that’s the big question, as we’re a forward-looking literary project out to decipher how the literary art will change– how it must change to retain any place in this crazy noisy society. Or in any society. (One criterion we look for in new fiction is universality: Is it enough of a tale to appeal to anyone anyplace?)

We’ll take, in our mad quest, pieces of ideas from anytime in the past– if we believe they’ll work with readers today. For instance: the yarn. The kind of Mark Twain Bret Harte Jack London story told at night around a campfire, or under an urban streetlamp, or in a dorm room. Something maybe over-the-top, often imaginative, and definitely so compelling you couldn’t stop listening– or reading– if you tried. Three months ago, New Pop Lit’s two editors (we hope to add others) were sitting around a coffee shop discussing this very notion. We’d presented several terrific tales in the past, but we wanted more. Give us stories! we shouted (not really), but wanted to, whether propelled by the love of literature and art or from too much caffeine. Lo and behold, arriving into our Inbox that very day was a wild story– definitely a yarn– set in New York City, that maddest, wildest, most ambitious of all cities. The story: “Give the People Guns” by Bela Seitz. Please click on the title and read.

Bela Seitz anyway seems wildly talented. Perhaps one of a phalanx of new prodigies prepared to bring fresh imagination and excitement into today’s literary game? One never knows. Idealists that we are, we hope so. We also hope you enjoy the story.

Grey billowing clouds rushed across the sky, as though someone had a high-powered fan propelling them across the vast blue expanse so that the weather could match the demeanor of the collected reporters. They used to have passion in their eyes, but now their faces were taut, stretched with the gravity of the situation and an innate understanding that the news was no longer something to look at on your phone and laugh about – but was something to be taken seriously.

The Importance of Poetry

Poetry

Is Poetry 3D?

POETRY may be the most multidimensional art, because right now rules are few: there’s an endless variety of ways to create and present the art form. Unique ways of viewing and reacting to the world.

TODAY we offer as powerful a feature poem as we ever have: “Slick” by Ali J. Prince.

Want poetry with passion? Which addresses the world around us? Poems that grab the reader or listener by the lapels– or t-shirt or pajamas– to pull the person from their comfortable chair or complacent attitude and shake that individual to say, “This is the world. This is art!” If so, then you might enjoy today’s offering.

SIMULTANEOUSLY with our feature poem, we’ve been showcasing at our Fast Pop Lit site the very different style of poetry of James Croal Jackson— including his latest for us, “House Concert,” which itself has a 3D or cubist quality to it. Click on it and see if you agree.

UPCOMING: More striking writing and provocative ideas, setting down in the current chaotic environment a path out of the morass into all-new artistic experiences. Stay tuned.