For one thing, Plrknib is the title of a new memoir by Alex Bernstein. But it’s also more than that. We’ll be reviewing the book right here, upcoming. The first of several new releases worth discussing, from America’s best new writers. What’s happening? For literary news we’re the go-to place.
Meanwhile, if you want to get a jump on the crowd and discover for yourself the “plrknib” secret, get a copy via this page.
What were the year’s highlights for the literary project known as New Pop Lit?
Among them have to be the two big Lit Questions we asked writers and editors of all stripes, which received terrific feedback. The first Question was about the contemporary short story. Our second Lit Question was about Ernest Hemingway. You’ll find the answers we received in both cases to be stimulating reading.
The Hemingway question was part of our celebration of Hemingway Day 2016. Another part of that celebration was an excursion by New Pop Lit editors to classic Hemingway country in northern Michigan. If you’re a fan of Hem, or of American literature, or of writing period, our little search for the man and myth makes must reading.
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Another highlight for us was our appearance at the Troy Public Library, giving a presentation as part of NaNoWriMo (National Writing Month). (Much thanks to Erin Chapman for setting this up.)
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In-between we found time to feature an array of new fiction and poetry from Tom Ray (twice), Ron Singer, Ian Lahey, Scott Cannon (twice), Jess Mize (three times), Dave Petraglia, (our own) Kathleen M. Crane, Joshua Isard, John Grochalski, Anne Leigh Parrish, “Fishspit” (twice), James Guthrie, Ken O’Steen, Erin Knowles Chapman, Jeff Schroeck, Steve Slavin, Samuel Stevens, Andy Tu, A.N. Block, Alex Bernstein, Andrew Sacks, Bruce Dale Wise, Timmy Chong, David R. Gwyn, Yoav Fisher, Lori Cramer, and a featured book review by Andrea Gregovich, AND several interviews with writers, some of them linked at our “Hype” page at our main site. I’m sure I’ve missed a name or two. Thanks to all the talented people who made our literary project an artistic success.
Last but not least we started a new feature we call Fun Pop Poetry, which can be found at our Interactive blog, along with other cool things. We included there the very best pop poets in America, as well as some of our favorite writers. Please read all 23 pop poetry entries– you’ll find them entertaining.
We’re here to entertain you. (We sneak our artistic theories in the back door peripherally and subliminally.) We’ll be doing a lot more entertaining in 2017.
-K.W.
We at New Pop Lit have joined the annual flood of mail sent off to the good people at Pushcart Press in Wainscott, New York, in the form of six nominations for consideration for Pushcart Prizes. Winners are included in the Pushcart Prize annual collection.
Every year the Pushcart people receive thousands of nominations from hundreds of literary outfits. The competition is stiff, to say the least.
If the editors have a bias, it’s understandably toward print journals, as they continue to operate in print. They may also be biased toward “name” writers– we’ve seen the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Mary Gaitskill in their collection. This is understandable also. The Pushcart people seek credibility and recognition, just like the rest of us.
OUR OBJECTIVES
What should be our objectives when deciding which works published in the past year to nominate?
1.) To nominate some of our best/favorite writings. Including work that pleased our readers.
2.) To present an eclectic mix. We’ve included in our nominations this year a poem and a book review. “Eclectic” in our mind includes mixing younger and older writers.
3.) To give ourselves an outside chance that one of our nominations wins a Pushcart Prize. Which means, long stories or essays are out. As a print publication, Pushcart has strictly limited space. If an upstart like ourselves has ANY shot to be included, it’s with a short work that grabs their attention.
Perhaps the best story we published in the past year was “Lucid Dreamer,” by Scott Cannon. It starts slow, and is quite long. This excluded it, in our eyes, from being nominated. Fortunately, we ran a shorter work by Scott in 2016 which is also an excellent story.
The other side of the coin is that we nominated not one of the “flash fiction” stories we published. Which brings us to our fourth criterion:
4.) To indulge our capricious whims. We’re writers– artists– ourselves. Which means at some point we throw away logic and operate on emotion and instinct. if we don’t have fun doing this project– what’s the point?
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OUR NOMINATIONS
–“Clarity,” a story by Alex Bernstein.
–“Ergo Propter Hoc,” a story by Scott Cannon.
–“Diminutives,” a story by Samuel Stevens.
–“The Old Neighborhood,” a story by Andy Tu.
–“Colapinto’s Undone,” a book review by Andrea Gregovich.
–“Death in the Medicine Cabinet,” a poem by Blixa BelGrande.
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Many thanks also to Anne Leigh Parrish, Tom Ray, Jess Mize, Ian Lahey, Erin Chapman, “Fishspit,” Tarzana Joe, Dan Nielsen, Wred Fright, and the other talented writers we could’ve or should’ve nominated this year.
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Thanks most of all to the people at Pushcart Press. The best way to support what they do is to purchase one of their collections– at a bookstore near you.
IT’S ALWAYS HEARTENING to see contrarian viewpoints within the often-monolithic established literary world. One of the consistent contrarians is critic and book reviewer Thomas Leclair. Recently he wrote this provocative examination of the National Book Award fiction finalists. (Winners were announced last Wednesday, November 16.) We agree with Leclair’s calling for more nominees from the small press– though we may be thinking of a different small press than he is. Our favored small press is in the process of creation– presenting neither “Big Five” commercialized crap, nor excessively “literary” scribblings penned by an insular literary elite disconnected from the vital currents of the American people and land. We look for a new hybrid– literary art which will be both popular, relevant, and original. A new American literature.
We also note that Leclair avoided the question of political correctness– of whether or not politics and/or ideology played a role in the NBA selection process. The task of the writer– of any artist– is to avoid the trap of an approved status quo viewpoint.
We trust that Thomas Leclair will continue to question the literary status quo, whatever his viewpoint.
(Also see our own recent look at the National Book Award poetry finalists. The announced winner shows the topsy-turvy alternate-universe world of American literature now.)
LAST WEEK the National Book Foundation in New York, at the center of establishment arts culture, announced their nominees for this year’s Poetry award. Each one of the five finalists has been highly awarded by the current literary system– by foundations, universities and/or governments. One would expect this to be the best of the best.
We did a quick perusal of bios, then examined one poem from each poet. Our grades follow.
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Daniel Borzutzky. P.C. factor: Of Chilean heritage. The poem: “Sentence”
We found Borzutzky to be a cross between an Allen Ginsberg wannabe and a flarf poet who jams random words and sentence fragments together. The result is pretentious nonsense. We give him a point or two for being tongue-in-cheek, and to be fair, he’s called what he does “Non-Writing.” We won’t disagree. (And, he’s making quite a living from minimal artistic investment, so kudos for that.)
Grade: D.
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Rita Dove. P.C. factor: African-American woman. The poem: “Heart to Heart”
A short, simple poem which expresses clarity and emotion.
Grade: B.
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Peter Gizzi. P.C. factor: Token white guy. The poem: “In Defense of Nothing”
Before Gizzi became part of the official literary game, he was a Do-It-Yourselfer. We’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt– but in this case his poem is aptly titled.
Grade: D+.
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Jay Hopler. P.C. factor: Born in Puerto Rico. The poem: “So Many Birds to Kill and So Few Stones”
We like Hopler’s use of alliteration. Here’s a poet who’s given at least some thought to craft. Still, the title and content are a tad too sober-serious for our taste– as is Hopler’s bio photo. Hopler’s clearly going for the “Poetry is serious business!” crowd.
Grade: C.
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Solmaz Sharif. P.C. factor: Turkish-born woman. The poem: “Vulnerability Study”
A very simple poem– but we like the juxtapositions. Easy seriousness.
Grade: C.
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Conclusion: The poems are a tad better then we expected– we’ve seen far worse come out of the academy. But we’re still left saying, “Is that all there is?” Is this all we’re competing against, in our fledgling campaign to remake and renew the art form? At their best, the poems are unexceptional. Not one is going to be remembered and quoted by readers– in the way people quote Poe, or Dylan Thomas, or Shakespeare. Not one will cause a person to sit up in shock or surprise– or outrage– or roar with laughter.
We want better poems!
Tarzana Joe is one of America’s few true poet celebrities, via his regular appearances on the nationally syndicated Hugh Hewitt Show. It’s therefore a mini-coup to obtain one of his poems for our Fun Pop Poetry feature. See the poem.
Tarzana Joe could be called the uncrowned champion of contemporary pop poetry. At the moment he is the master of the form.
American pop poetry has a long pedigree. Edgar Allan Poe was a pop poet through widely-known works like “The Bells,” “The Raven,” and “El Dorado.” Robert W. Service is another classic example of an American pop poet, whose “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” was wildly popular in the first half of the Twentieth Century.
Our goal with our Fun Pop Poetry feature is to restore the profile of the pop poetry genre in America.
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POP POETRY TODAY
While Tarzana Joe is pop poetry’s leading personality, we’re discovering no shortage of other claimants to that designation. Among them:
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Blixa BelGrande, whose poetry ranges from the furious to the facetious to the outrageous.
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Cerebral poet Bruce Dale Wise practices all poetic styles, pop included. In an interview, soon to be featured at New Pop Lit, Bruce doesn’t exclude himself from title of best current American poet. (Gotta love the confidence.)
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Craig Kurtz has been writing pop poetry since the 1990’s, usually with a historical motif.
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(Artwork by Dan Nielsen.)
Dan Nielsen pens witty Dorothy Parkerisms, in addition to crisp avant-garde stylings. (More coming from Dan next week.)
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Emerson Dameron runs the Weird Deer website, and has performed at open mics around the country. So far we’ve obtained only one pop poem from Emerson, but it was a good one.
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Other pop poets we’ve featured or will feature include spoken word veteran Wred Fright; ace short story writer Scott Cannon; and Tarzana Joe-wannabe Ellsworth B. Smith.
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Keep up with the pop poetry movement at Fun Pop Poetry.
There are 24 big lit names featured in our first “Lit Question of the Month” forum discussing the contemporary short story.
They’re from all parts of the new literary universe.
They gave 24 striking answers, here.
(Why the Edsel photo? The car is a classic example of a giant manufacturer trying to force-feed the public a product it didn’t want. Is the same thing happening with the giant publishing conglomerates?)
ONE of our missions at Detroit-based NEW POP LIT is to outmaneuver the mandarins of the Manhattan-Brooklyn literary world.
We’ve just done it!– obtaining the first U.S. publication of one of Belarus’s most exciting writers, Andrei Dichenko. This exactly one day after Belarus author Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for literature. Read Dichenko’s work now, ably translated by Andrea Gregovich.
This scoop is proof that we’re hungrier, tougher and faster than the pseudo-intellectuals. (Also more fun.)
By Lloyd Poast
Archie comics have always been a symbol of the simpler pleasures in life. Nearly every household in the seventies and eighties had a dog-eared Archie digest laying around where the adventures of Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the gang could be picked up and read for a quick smile.
Last year, Archie Comics surprised readers by placing those same loveable teenagers from Riverdale into the pages of a zombie apocalypse called Afterlife with Archie. The very mature and dark series was both a critical and commercial success which proved that Archie could pull off horror as well as comedy.
This October, the company continued to capitalize on their newfound notoriety and reinvented everyone’s favorite teenage witch, Sabrina, releasing their newest entry in the horror field entitled Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. If the rest of the series is anything like the debut issue, Archie Comic Publications has monster on their hands. Sabrina is amazing.
Born of a mortal woman and a warlock father, Sabrina is raised by her two aunts and the first issue follows her from birth until her early teens. Along the way, we also meet her familiar, a talking cat named Salem, and her warlock cousin, Ambrose. With superb writing by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and art by Robert Hack, the creative team have developed an atmospheric supernatural thriller that blends the classic chills of Rosemary’s Baby with the youthful cool of The Lost Boys. While there may not be long haired teenage vampires cavorting about a large Jim Morrison poster, Robert Hack’s artwork is appropriately creepy with a slight retro feel that is a perfect complement to Aguirre-Sacasa’s story. His images seem to creep out of the panels and stick in your subconscious, preying on many of the universal fears everyone has. The introduction of Madame Satan is especially well done.
In addition to the new monthly story, each issue of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina will also reprint a classic Sabrina tale, adding even more value to an already impressive package.
The series is a must have for horror fans and now is the perfect time to jump on board with Issue #2 about to be released. After the startling conclusion of the first issue, Sabrina’s teenage crush, Harvey Kinkle, doesn’t seem to be himself. In fact, he doesn’t seem human. When the Witches’ Council refuses to help her, Sabrina turns to Madame Satan for comfort. Will Sabrina save Harvey or succumb to Madame Satan’s ol’ black magic? Find out when Sabrina #2 is released on November 5th.
by Lloyd Poast
Anne Rice is about to unleash the vampire one more time. After spending more than a decade in the dark, the author’s most famous character, the vampire Lestat, is set to embark on a new journey in the Vampire Chronicles entitled Prince Lestat. It’s the eleventh entry in the series that began in 1976 with Interview with the Vampire.
Considered a sequel to the third book, Queen of the Damned, the plot of Prince Lestat involves old vampires doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from around the globe. The novel moves from present day to ancient times as supernatural creatures rise up and seek out who-or what-the Voice is.
Anne Rice had previously stated that there would not be any new entries to The Vampire Chronicles, but her obvious change of heart will be greeted with both excitement and fear from longtime fans of the series. Many feel that Lestat lost much of his rebellious charm over time, and that despite a long string of books, Rice arguably peaked as a writer with her first three novels of immortal fiction (Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned). All three are considered modern horror classics that added touches of humanity to the vampire mythology, while later novels such as Memnoch the Devil weren’t quite able to match their hypnotic quality.
Will Prince Lestat regain the glory of the original trilogy or be just another reason to remember the undead brilliance of what was? Fans will find out when the dust blows off the coffin on October 28th.
newpoplitnews.com 