Not for the Poetry Revolt:
- a muted, distant tone, a stance of confusion and bewilderment
- "wonder" poems expressing bafflement about things in nature, reality, etc. where the poet cannot figure out what is happening as the light dwindles, things fade, fly off, or disappear . . .
- disjunction, incomprehensibility, surrealism
- themes of disconnection, distancing, remoteness, derealization
- long clusters of painstakingly observed details: leaves, raindrops, dust, gravel, etc.
- explorations of the unknowability of nature, reality, stuff you see. (The journals love these so why waste them on us?)
- elliptical poems. Please send poems on nominalism, nihilism, and numbed clueless contemplation of the vertiginous abyss to academic journals.
- explanations of what the poem just said, e. g. "He snarled as he spoke to the old man. He hated him."
- repetition. Feel free to develop and deepen--we do not consider excessive conciseness a virtue--but do not restate.
Poems the Revolt yearns for:
- experiences that are vivid, intense or--yes!--hyperreal:
Little poppies, little hell-flames
Do you do no harm?
-- Poppies in July, Sylvia Plath, We hear our hearts grate on themselves
-- Sonnet 48, Gerard Manley Hopkins
- poems that dramatize a need, threat, dilemma, paradox, emotion, conflict, or visual scene, aesthetic experience, philosophical quandary, etc.
- poetic surprise, unexpected twists, originality, daring
Lark drives invisible pitons in the air
And hauls itself up the face of space.
Mouse stops being comma and clockworks on the floor.
-- Movements, Norman MacCaigs
- a lively, responsive tone, and a strong persona
- a fairly swift and above all dynamic progression, driving the poem forward (e.g. Kay Ryan, Syvia Plath, GM Hopkins)
- poems that "do something with language"--using the sounds rhythms and associations of words to enrich meaning
- poems that are musical and rhythmic, and that use assonance and rhyme (not necessarily end rhyme, but that's cool, too.)
- mockery, ferocity, wit, and satire are welcome, though not required.
- we love lyrics, narratives, elegies, threnodies, fables--and we would welcome light verse and social and political satire.
-- Editor, the Poetry Revolt
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