Sunday Snips #5
A Revised Manifesto, Forecasting Growth, and Orbital Placement
Good day, all you lovely literary creatures! Time has certainly flown by, hasn’t it? It’s already mid-April! While life certainly has been busy, so have the many new developments within the SubStack community. While I find myself dropping my links into the SubStack homepage, I feel like there is a better way to deeply connect, and it’s through these weekly Sunday Snips.
I’ve originally assembled a Poet's Manifesto when I first began, and while most of this holds true today, there are some addendums that need to be made:
Poetry is not only for the Ivory Tower, but for the layperson. It’s for the bartender working nights and weekends to support their kids. It’s for the EMTs and ER techs who see not just the worst of human suffering, but the best of human compassion. It’s for the educator who’s exhausted after another long week of teaching, grading and PTA conferences. It’s for the sex worker, the porn actress, those that society looks down on. It’s for the homeless man, holding a cardboard sign, unable to work because he has no legal address to write on the application, nor a shower to clean himself up in.
There is no bad poetry, as most professors and critics would have you think. Rather, there is poetry that is gestating, poetry that is newly birthed, poetry that is a pre-teen, poetry that is geriatric. Peoms are living, breathing beings, growing and developing, awaiting a chance to get out in this vast world. Al we need to do is help them grow up.
Poetry is liberation.
WIP
Boy, last time I wrote this, there were a few things in the works. Today, I’m super thrilled to share a few new publications, some upcoming things, and a super secret.
Touchstone. So, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire has a journal, quarterly I believe, and somehow I had two poems accepted! Now, I can’t post any copies of these poems, for obvious reasons, but I can tell you that Outlier and Variations of the Road Not Taken made the cut. For premium subscribers, I’ll ensure audio recordings of the poems are available this week.
The Craven Companion. Ok, so this particular project is currently under its final revision, and I’m pretty excited to see this phase of the article wrapped up. I will say that, according to the editor, this Companion is meant to introduce the works of Craven to a new audience, which is pretty epic. More news as this develops!
Instapoetry. I gotta be honest, I’ve been slowly growing the Instapoetry library. While my posts aren’t as consistent as I’d like, I am getting some additional followers due to some of the work I’m putting out, which is something! Check me out at Instagram! Follow, and comment!
Anti-Hero Dad and Other Legendary Creatures. Ok, so I’ve been really deliberating on how to assemble my first chapbook, and it seems many of you who know my work really latch onto the idea of “divorced dad” poems. So, why fight it? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be assembling a draft manuscript of Anti-Hero Dad and Other Legendary Creatures for submisson somewhere. I mean, it’s only 80-100 pages, how hard can it be?
Gettin’ Lit
Well, I gotta say that reading consistently certainly provides numerous new updates, that’s for sure. So, let’s begin with some of those that I either just finished, or just started!
Ring (or Ringu), written by Koji Suzuki, is the predecessor for both the Japanese film Ringu and its American counterpart The Ring. I don’t know about you, but the last time I saw the American version was when I was in high school. Today, understanding Japanese folklore, and something more about vengeful spirits, I totally dig the background story!
Ok, so this may be the lit nerd in me, or the Master’s scholar in me, but there’s a very very good reason why I’m reading theory. I’m currently formulating a DIY PhD program, for reasons I’ll get into another time, and the genre of body horror is on my self-designed syllabus. Besides, this will give me more background expertise in discussing horror films. A win-win!
Ahhh…Margaret Atwood. The simple fact that she wrote a sequel novel to The Handmaid’s Tale was reason enough to pick this volume up. While I’ve just cracked it open, Atwood doesn’t disappoint in her first-person subjective narrative. A further reason to read this: There’s going to be a series based on this book released sometime within the next year, providing plenty of literary analysis opportunities when the first episode drops.
What’s Playing
Boy, I haven’t had much time to delve into developing a playlist (yet), however what I can tell you is that Myriad Drone has joined the names of Hereafter, Majora, Empires of Light and Shy, Low to form a playlist I’ve called heavy Melodic Post Rock. Most of my poetry is written while listening to this playlist at work, on my lunch break.
Prometheus Initiative
So, this is proceeding slowly but surely. I’m assembling original hand-outs that provide incredibly simple explanations of several poetry forms, and am currently undertaking a longer source project that attacks the many ways poetic verses are constructed, complete with rhyme schemes and definitions. These will become available only on the Premium Subscriber level, so be sure to kick it up a notch! Bam!
That’s all for this week! Please consider supporting me as a poet, an educator, and a group facilitator, by becoming a regular paid subscriber. Believe me, the more support you provide, the more time I’ll have to dedicate to breaking down the walls that academia constructed.
Much love!
Shane David Morin