A Manifesto on Poetry

I. Be pragmatic about the act of writing, so the writing itself may be unfettered.

II. There is bound to be an occasional sense of failure. Strike deals with it as often as you can. Never compromise.

III. Words and phrases will make themselves known to you while you are walking. Accept them.

IV. Interrogate every word that comes your way. What is its politics?

V. Never let a poem rest in a place of frozen meaning. Ensure that every poem is aware of at least some of its uncertainties.

VI. Have convictions.

VII. Leave gaps or interstices for something to flow out of the poem into the world, and vice versa.

VIII. Never let insecurity talk you into using fillers or more words than necessary. Write precisely.

IX. En-strange language, syntax, diction, rhythm so as to give pause.

X. Use forms memorably, or disform, or create significant forms.

XI. Craft the poem. Know your craft. Learn it then practise it.

XII. Engage urgently with the external and the internal.

XIII. Refuse paradigms if they are narrow and if you don’t like them. Unhinge them. Create your own.

XIV. Never disdain popular culture just because it is popular.

XV. Be aware of margins.

XVI. Believe in countercultures.

XVII. Write about relationships. Write about power.

XVIII. You will be tempted to write about suffering. Stand a part of yourself at a distance for perspective.

XIX. Cast off old ideas periodically. Be curious about new ones.

XX. Read nimbly.

XXI. Perform for an audience. Find ways for your work to perform. Speak it, or sing it.

XXII. Take risks. Make movies of your poems. Or write tunes or take photographs of them. Collaborate with someone. Be restless.

XXIII. Never rely entirely on someone else’s arsenal or strategies. Never have a fixed arsenal or fixed strategies. Try everything. Keep trying.

XXIV. Destroy the generic.

XXV. Be tentative about your first finished draft. Leash it to yourself for some time. Let it out only after you can account for it.

XXVI. Revise intelligently.

XXVII. Write every day.

XXVIII. Live voraciously, with discipline.

XXIX. Films, art, music and theory arc you to interesting places. Enjoy them.

XXX. Listen, or travel, or walk.

XXXI. Now and again, write silly poems. Cats make good subjects, if you happen to like them.

XXXII. Live ethically.

how often?

"People change and forget to tell each other." - Lillian Hellman

Delhi - Open Baithak returns - Oct 13

presents

BRUCE BERGER

Monday October 13, 6.30 pm
Vasant Vihar, New Delhi
(please email us for complete address and directions)

Bruce Berger is best known for his poety and essays exploring the intersections of nature and culture. His poems have appeared in "Poetry", "Barron's", "Orion" and various literary reviews, and have been collected in "Facing the Music". He won the 2005 Colorado Authors' League Award for Poetry and was a featured poet in "Light".

Berger grew up in suburban Chicago and graduated from Yale University with a B. A. in English. During graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, wondering what Crater Lake looked like in the snow, he chucked his books down the library chute and left academia. He played piano professionally for three years in Spain, and more recently has played benefit classical recitals in Mexico.

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We begin the evening with an OPEN READING. Poets and writers who are interested in performing can sign up 6 pm onwards. Each performer gets 5 mins; 9 slots only. Be there!

CO-SPONSORED by the American Center, New Delhi
CONTACT openbaithak@gmail.com

OPEN BAITHAK is a meeting place for poets and writers in Delhi who are innovating with ways of presenting their work to audiences; for artists experimenting with performance as a medium of artistic expression; and for readers and audience of poetry and performance.

"Anarcho-Flarf Vandalism"?

I'm tickled to be in the same anthology as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anna Akhmatova, Monica de la Torre, Joyelle McSweeney, and 3159 others. Sharanya is confused; Ron Silliman is livid.

Here is how it started: On a mailing list, I read that Issue 1, just out, has new poems by among others Monica Mody. I did not remember submitting any poems to them. Was this an old poem? Was this an unauthorised poem? I opened the issue pdf and reached page 1314 and jumped. I did not remember writing the poem (yeah, Ron). I gulped. Had my homonym taken to writing poetry? I breathed deeply and wondered wildly if I should write to her and remind her of our understanding (for she must have googled her name as well, yes? - and found me - and come to the same undiscussed mutual understanding). She writes children's books. I write poetry.

I googled "monica mody ~poetry" to appraise the extent of the damage (to territory). And stumbled on Steve McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter's project, Silliman who is livid and Sharanya who is confused. And others who are adamant that they can write better poetry than attributed to them by the "editors".

Is the "algorithmically generated content" in Issue 1 "anarcho-flarf vandalism"? I guess it is but anarcho-flarf vandalism is just fine by me and, yes, in our postmodernism-is-dead world, it has a place. The project is funny, and spunky, and brilliant, and there's not a little overreaction going on among poets who are het up about it.