Towards a Manifesto for a New Poetry

Lael Ewy

Sometimes Editor, Seldom "In-Chief"

Poetry should:

  1. Refuse to be reduced to an "ism"
  2. Fly in the face of convention, except where it feels impelled to embrace it
  3. Reject all snobbery and effete-ism, except to ridicule it
  4. Be blatantly random
  5. Be not afraid to be unreadable
  6. Be not afraid to be abstract
  7. Be not afraid to be vulgar, angry, political or annoying
  8. Reject all notions of craft
  9. Be not afraid to be funny
  10. Be unafraid to be humble
  11. Be unafraid
  12. Be useless
  13. Be unpublishable
  14. Be written without regard to set notions of art, artifact, or above all, the artist's place in history
  15. Be handwritten
  16. Include hypertext, if desired
  17. Be as easily performed as ballet as spoken word
  18. Be in blatant violation of FCC regulations
  19. Contain genuine emotion
  20. Be written for people, dogs, rocks, fruit. . .
  21. Be exclusively auditory
  22. Be exclusively visual
  23. Be exclusively excrement
  24. Be pleasurable
  25. Be difficult
  26. Be easy
  27. Be academically unsound
  28. Be chemically unstable
  29. Be cruel
  30. Be humane
  31. Be blasphemous
  32. Be holy
  33. Be heavy
  34. Be cream
  35. Be blue
  36. Be pink
  37. Be red.