Avant-Garde Poetry Contest 2

[HCabret]

Thank you YesNo!

For the next contest I am going to set the topic of: Metamodernism: "ironic detachment with sincere engagement".

Deadline: November 11th

[tailor STATELY]

Found a source that might help re: metamodernism: http://www.metamodernism.com/2015/01...-introduction/ from "The Notes on Metamodernism" web page (for those who are as lost as I am).

Thankfully it lists a few poets

...the poetry of Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Sophie Collins, and Melissa Broder’s quasi-mystical multimedia NewHive offerings.

who (apparently) have written in this genre of no genres.

... metamodernism itself is not intended as a philosophy or an art movement, since it does not define or delineate a closed system of thought, or dictate any particular set of aesthetic values or methodologies.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[HCabret]

Deadline will be November 11thish.

[YesNo]

All those fresh books on polished bookcases made
me realize that someone’s making money but then
I noticed that all those authors wrote in the twentieth
century which meant that although the books were
new what was in those books was old and so those
authors must be modernists or at best postmodernists
and not metamodernists and Gerald said that was
because students are fundamentally conservative
down to their genes because they think they have
to read the entire library before they can say they
are intelligent enough to shoot their mouths and their
teachers are even worse living in the dark ages before
flush toilets and I told him that most people nowadays
use flush toilets even teachers but he said he was
exercising his right of ironic detachment and I was too
insincere to get it and I wanted to know what sincerity
had to do with it and he said that I just proved his
point and I of course was fool enough to ask him what
point he thought he had just made and he laughed like
someone who really knew something that I didn’t and
then he pulled a book by Cioran from the shelf and read
a random soundbite to me with a smile and a twinkle
in his wicked eyes proving that I was too stupid to engage
him in argument and I had better start reading all the
books in the library before I shoot my mouth again.

[Lokasenna]

I've adapted something I wrote a little while back - I hope it fits the 'metamodern' theme!

My Post-post-(post?)-modern Poem

I’ve decided to write a metamodern poem
as they’re all the rage these days
with the kids, not to mention the fact
that people actually publish this horse****.

I’m going to write in free verse,
partly because it gives me the freedom
to express my innermost thoughts and feelings
in a free-floating, dancing filigree that’s not constrained by
a conscious prison of fascist form,
but mostly because rhyme and rhythm
are such a fag to get right.

I’ll begin slow:
I probably need something to hook the audience’s attention,
so I’ll start with sex.
Only, I’m not very good with sex. Whenever the
subject matter takes a gynaecological turn,
I come over all English. There are only so
many euphemisms for a bit of clumsy fumbling
and frankly I’m not comfortable with any of them.
Perhaps it might be better if I throw out some
abstract images that don’t really mean anything,
such as an old and worn barn door, a dog wearing a hat,
and the late President Grover Cleveland.
Now that my audience is nicely confused,
I’ll throw out some mad ragbag clutter
of mixed metaphors and deranged similes,
like a Turkish pharmacist dancing the
gavotte between a rock and the end of the line.
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense,
so long as I glare hard enough at the audience
any old crap will sound profound.

It’s usual at this juncture to put in some
meaningless digression that has nothing to do
with the subject of the poem (if it should have one),
so here we go:
How am I going to sell this drivel? These days
a poet must be as marketable as their poetry,
so I suppose I need a ‘thing’ to go with my work,
something to express ‘Brand Me’.
I went to a poetry reading the other night,
four poets who ranged from awful to...
well... also awful, but in a different way.
The first was some woman wearing half a
dead badger round her neck, and the bones of
last Sunday’s roast chicken in her hair,
who waved her arms about while maundering through
some dreary monologue about Vikings skinning things.
After some polite applause, she rewarded our fortitude
by reciting another poem, also featuring Vikings
brutalising fluffy animals. I think she needs help.
Next up was some bloke with a stupid
beard and a Dr Who costume, labouring under
the sad delusion that he was amusing. After a few
long minutes of pointless prattle, he tried to sell
us tickets to his one-man show. Bet that’ll cause
a few suicides. The next poet was actually quite good,
but she won’t do well – she was far too normal.
The final poet’s work I can’t comment on:
not only did he mumble incomprehensibly into his notes,
but he was dressed EXACTLY like one of my
uncle’s garden gnomes. What is it with poets
and alarmingly-coloured trousers nowadays?
Oh, and he also had a stupid beard. I think
they must be part of the uniform. Mind you,
when grown out my beard is also pretty stupid,
so maybe I stand a chance after all.

Anyway, back to the poem proper.
I’m not sure what to do now, so I’ll mention
Grover Cleveland again,
and throw out some gratuitous foreign lingo:
¿Dónde está el ayuntamiento?
¡Me duele la cabeza!
Maybe Spanish is a bit too obvious
(some people in the audience might actually know it),
so...
Hvar er klósettið?
Ég kalla á lögregluna!
I would add some footnotes at this point
but I’ve never worked out how to make Word
do them nicely, and in any case I think
the less I explain, the better.

And now, because I’ve got nothing to lose,
I’ll finish by mentioning
Grover Cleveland again, and
trailing off into a meaningful
silence...

[HCabret]

I very much enjoyed both entries.

YesNo: You employ a self referential form of mythopoeia, which a major characteristic of metamodernism. You tell a grand story of introspection and self doubt, but constantly remond the reader of the metaness of your work. Your poem may be ten stanzas too short for a hard core metamodernist though.

Lokasenna: It seems that you've written a critique of metamodernism from a postmodern perspective. You fully and wholeheartedly embrace ironic detatchment, but your poem lacks the characteristic sincere engagement of metamodernism. That being said, I enjoyed your poem and thought it was very funny. Ironically (or maybe not), metamodernists would embrace the "fascist" constrainsts of pre-modern verse in an attempt the convey a reconstructionist mythopoeia.

Winner: YesNo

[YesNo]

Thanks, HCabret! And thanks for introducing metamodernism.

The next topic for the avant-garde contest is irony.

Deadline: Hopefully before December.

[HCabret]

Thanks, HCabret! And thanks for introducing metamodernism.

The next topic for the avant-garde contest is irony.

Deadline: Hopefully before December.

How ironic?!

[YesNo]

I just counted that as an entry, HCabret! But I am willing to accept more than one entry per poet, so please enter again. I need as much irony as I can get.

[Pendragon]

Oh the Irony!

Isn't it ironic
That a love that's platonic
With someone who's exotic
Can turn so erotic
An intoxicating tonic
That heartbeats turn sonic
The tongue tangles phonics
Like something demonic
Hearts together harmonic
An experience iconic
Yet the illness is chronic
Like plague Bubonic
Or even Pneumonic
And you swoon like a catatonic
How very ironic!

Pendragon
11/13/2015

[Lokasenna]

Lokasenna: It seems that you've written a critique of metamodernism from a postmodern perspective. You fully and wholeheartedly embrace ironic detatchment, but your poem lacks the characteristic sincere engagement of metamodernism. That being said, I enjoyed your poem and thought it was very funny. Ironically (or maybe not), metamodernists would embrace the "fascist" constrainsts of pre-modern verse in an attempt the convey a reconstructionist mythopoeia.

I'm glad you found it funny - thanks for judging! And congratulations, YesNo!

[YesNo]

Any others? Avant-garde! Avant-garde!

[YesNo]

I guess there is no one else.

The winner is Pendragon! I liked all the -onic sounds.

[Pendragon]

Thank you. Let's go with "subtle"

[YesNo]

I turned the key locking the front door and went down the steps
to follow the sidewalk to the library thinking about people blowing
up restaurants and thinking what it would be like to be in one of
those restaurants eating my last meal and not knowing it was my
last meal and maybe it would be a valuable thing to do, since life
was short anyway, to volunteer to be their target but I didn’t know
how this would help them see things differently still someone was
going to be their target and typical targets probably had other plans
for their day when I met Gerald who said that no matter how much
self-hypnosis he tried he still did not feel very good about himself
and I asked him if he was using positive messages or negative
messages when he was in his trances and he said they were obviously
negative because he didn’t feel good about himself but they should
still work and I told him the mind is tricky and if he wanted to trick
it back then he had to be subtle which made him feel even more
negative about himself because he realized he wasn’t even subtle
and then I told him to forget what I just told him and he said it was
difficult now to forget what I just said and so I decided to forget it
for him and we continued walking to the library and I was feeling
good, looking at all the details that life manifested on the street and
Gerald wanted to know why I was so happy and I told him I didn’t
know I was happy and that made him feel even worse and he wanted
to know how I did it without hypnosis or drugs and I said maybe I
got high on life and he said that was garbage and it probably was
and he said that even if everything I thought were true, whatever
that was, if I had enough brains, which I apparently didn’t, and if I
were subtle enough there are definitely ways to see it all differently.