WE TAKE A BREAK from our fiction experiments in the New Pop Lit laboratories to present Three New Poems by a poetic practitioner from Pennsylvania, Luke Kuzmish. The poems touch on subjects as diverse as drug use, Charles Bukowski and Wall Street. (A Wall Street bar, but still.) We hope you enjoy them.
the kind of pills
to fix the problems
they don’t tell you about
in welfare rehabs
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(Art: “Painting” by Patrick Henry Bruce.)
AMID the flurries of ideology and politics bombarding us from all sides on a daily-no-hourly basis, we’d like to emphasize that for us (for all we know only for us) nothing matters in the realm of letters but the quality and passion of the ART. All the ideological intellectual political debates and hates raging to and fro mean nothing in the face of the reality of art.
It’s with this mindset that we offer an incredible reading– captured on video– by arts writer and poet D.C. Miller: “My Behaviour.” Available now at our Open Mic feature. Intelligence combined with passion. To be able to present such moments is what makes this modest project worthwhile.
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(REMINDER: The 3–D Short Story debuts at this site June 6. Don’t miss it!)
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(Art: “Visions of the Knight Tondal” by Simon Marmion.)
MORE MORE poetry poetry. We’ve been on a poetry kick of late. We continue it with three sparkling quick poems from Ohio poet James Croal Jackson, full of wry insight combined with slices of realism. Read them!
think of those
who have lost
the soup
steams the kitchen
sunken chicken
in chunks
salt boils
the tea kettles
green
the minced leaves
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DON’T FORGET also our ongoing Open Mic, smoky low-light venue of dynamic spoken word performed by today’s most fascinating and talented literary personalities. We’re at a short pause– the crowd is buzzing because next up are Dan Nielsen and Georgia Bellas, reading words while backed by the band Sugar Whiskey. Or maybe Dan and Georgia are Sugar Whiskey. We’ll find out!
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(Painting: “The Knife Grinder” by Kazimir Malevich.)
At New Pop Lit we’re continually on the lookout for new talent combined with striking personality– recognizing that talent is often if not always the expression of personality.
WE’RE AWARE and we’ve been aware for some time that the literary scene needs “stars.” It needs personas, BIG, bigger-than-Hemingway personalities, dramatic figures crafting unorthodox unpredictable fictions or poems taking the literary art in new directions, to new heights.
IN THIS ongoing search we have today two possible future literary earthshakers.
Our new featured fiction, “The Hunting Cabin,” is by Brian Eckert, one of the best independent short story writers on today’s scene– independent in the sense of not writing to please take-no-chances Manhattan magazine editors, or even paint-by-the-numbers university professors. Eckert writes for the unseen artistic conscience. His story is three-dimensionally honest. More rounded, with more depth– puzzles and questions– than usual literary fare.
WE ALSO have, along with Brian’s perspective, an equally powerful but quite different viewpoint from talented poet Kristin Garth, who’s been getting much attention lately across the internet, and who has kindly offered New Pop Lit a short recording for our ongoing Open Mic. Her poem is called “Kristins.” We believe you’ll find it striking.
We try to be a window on new literature!
(Paintings: “Matterhorn” by Edward Theodore Compton; “Window with Orange Curtains” by Robert Delaunay.)
POETRY MONTH continues, as we continue publishing and promoting poetry.
The word– the Homer-Shakespeare oral tradition folk legend spanning-all-cultures origin of literature.
For this edition of our tribute to poetry
we have a variety of styles
emotions, images,
sound and wordplay
essential elements of the art.
FIRST,
Four Poems by Holly Day, presenting an array of ideas and images of a poetic nature.
Eavesdropping, I want to tell her
that the white marble statues of Greek temples were originally
covered in bright splotches of paint, that the pyramids were once topped
with garish gold cones, that the cold stone idol she’s touching right now
was once plastered with white lime and painted in neon hues.
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SECOND, we have a new book review of an exciting new volume of prose and poetry by talented underground writer Nicole Nesca of Screamin’ Skull Press. Worth examination– if you want to see what’s happening.
–a writer bleeding emotion, history, and imagination onto the page. Nicole does this in chapter after chapter, a many-hued mix of poetry, prose and stories–
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THIRD, there’s our ongoing Open Mic at which another poet will soon step to the microphone– James Croal Jackson, who will be featured, in a few weeks– as Holly Day is currently featured– with new poetry. You’ll be able to hear him first.
Poetry Month? New Pop Lit is covering it.
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(Paintings: “Homer Among the Greeks” by Gustav Jaeger; “The Lady from Shalott” by John William Waterhouse; “Portrait of a Poet” by Palma Vecchio.)
IS ANYONE looking for the New? Does anyone besides ourselves actually want and is actively searching for and creating the NEW?
Pop Lit is about discovery and synthesis. It’s about creating. About fusing two poles, in poetry’s case, of stasis and chaos. System and street. Bebop rhythm and wordplay, the energy of freedom combined with poetic learning, predecessors, history. IF the humanities mean anything (one hears massive nonsense about “the humanities”) it means nods to the past but not shackling institutionally the talents and voices of today.
TODAY we present fresh creations from young verse-master Timmy Chong— seven or nine poems depending upon how you count them– which he names “Twenty & Change.” Note his euphonious use of assonance, rhythm, occasional rhyme, with urban/suburban themes, a hip-hop feel– but it’s not hip-hop– and with tricks absorbed from past masters like Plath or Berryman– but it’s not like anything they wrote either. It’s only, hyperbolically-speaking, where poetry needs to go. Where it needs to be, in 2018, or 2020.
Boy got them low eyes,
got that good lip
reeking purple like periques.
Says when the plug dry
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AS PART of our Poetry Attack! we’re soliciting audio for our ongoing Open Mic, at Club New Pop Lit. (Think neon letters reflected on a rainy Detroit-or-Philly street.) The club is imagination but the voices are real. (Well, maybe not Ms. Hepburn’s.) COMING within days or hours to the club is spectacularly talented Detroit-area poetess Erin Knowles Chapman with a reading ostensibly about a bowling alley.
Exciting things are happening. Just saying.
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(1st public domain action painting is by Michael Philip. 2nd public domain “spin art” painting is by German artist calling self Kungfuman.)
Poetry in outer space,
poetry is every place!
Poetry is hip and cool
(Apologies to Dr. Seuss.)
WE MISSED National Poetry Day– likely one of those Hallmark-created holidays anyway. We’re making up for it by turning our site temporarily over to poets and poetry.
FIRST is this week’s feature, “Black Water and Other Poems” by renowned Ohio poet Robert Beveridge.
The departure began
at a Dave Smith reading
as I poured alcohol
and peroxide down
the podium to kill
the beer worms.
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NEXT are the latest selections for the All-Time American Writers Tournament. ALL POETS!! Find out who they are here.
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We ALSO recently posted a missive from a mysterious activist character at the Tournament named “Cherry Bomb”– which just happens to be in the form of a poem.
(If we’re not having occasional fun– then what’s the point?)
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Pop it, punch it, make it snap
Poetry is where it’s at! 🙂
WE’VE BEEN primarily promoting poetry the previous few weeks, particularly with our Fun Pop Poetry feature. Pushing the parameters of what acceptable poetry looks like. Some might say we’ve gone too far with that! But in addition to having fun, we also look for more serious verse, written in what we consider to be a “pop” style.
Which means, we look for a poet who uses at least some rhythm or rhyme. Who has a sense, consciously or instinctively, of euphony. Which means poems that are pleasing to recite or read– not in some ethereal never-never land but part of today. Poems which create images of this world. Of now.
Most of all we look for the elusive quality “talent”– a quality once highly valued in the literary realm, but which in our postmodern age of no standards or reality has largely been pushed to the side. Not here!
We believe we’ve discovered a young poet of striking talent in Timmy Chong. Read his poetry here and see if you agree.
they call us corrupt
because we travel in packs—
newfound adults in
pastel shorts and
backwards hats,
they say our brotherhood
bleeds mob mentality,
that we are aggressive
in our privilege
and childish for
buying the same brands,
spitting off of sidewalks,
stumbling at dawn, and
singing too loud our
chapter’s songs,
OCTOBER, which ends with Halloween, is a crazy month– and we’re going crazy about poetry. Toward that end, we feature Four Poems from intellectual poet Bruce Dale Wise. As you’ll see, he’s known for his topicality.
Are his poems traditional? Postmodern? Both? Neither? Read them and judge for yourself.
The coup in Turkey has been stopped; the purges now begin.
It’s time to cleanse state institutions shouts out Erdoĝan.
So who is being targeted in this his counter-coup?
All those who do not totally support his point of view:
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We also have a dynamite interview with Bruce up at our New Pop Lit News blog. Check it out!
I lean to our time, the New Millennial period; the Internet has opened up the possibilities of American poetry, and I think it is exciting to be writing right now.
Warhol or cheeseburger?
Cheeseburger or Warhol?
Such are dilemmas of running a pop literary site. Do we headline our current offering with a photo of a cheeseburger, or one of Andy Warhol?
The New Pop Lit staff engaged in a furious debate over the matter.
The question came up because we feature today four poems from talented Detroit-area poet Erin Knowles Chapman. One of the poems has to do with pop artist Andy Warhol. Another mentions a cheeseburger.
We finally asked ourselves: “What would Warhol do?”
Being a pop artist– loving American pop culture– Andy Warhol would undoubtedly have run with the cheeseburger, which screams “Americana.” Which shouts, “pop.”
Who are we to argue with Andy Warhol? We are, after all, a “pop” cultural project.
Anyway, please read the four poems. We hope you enjoy them!
Snow, the size of thumbprints, diagonally descends.
Do the Fates constrict our naked hands?
New Pop Lit 