potw theme

NewStyle Poem of the Week This Poem of the Week site is dedicated to new and original poems that are dictated by styles that we have only felt glimpses of so far. Example of a new style. Submissions are always more than welcome. There is no editorial process of selection, excepting for size (approx. less than 50 lines) and making sure that something new, thoughtful, and original is being done. A blurb about the topic, author, and process would be most appreciated to accompany the work. All authors should be willing to accept commentary on their works, kudos as well as criticisms, via e-mail. To submit: Please send your submission to pham@wso.williams.edu, with the acronym "POTW" somewhere in the subject. Note that your e-mail address will be made public, though your identity can be retained upon request. Please include a blurb as described above and any formatting requests. An Anonymous Rant: Patron Saints: Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Bukowski, Dick, Delillo. These are not New Yorker poems. These are ingenuously urban, sarcastically suburban, postmodern punk, soused, cyborg, on speed and nicotine. But though they might seem cold and metal steel, they are really about the same subjects: the how's, who's and why's of love, life, and death, and the supreme questions of happiness. Drunks, punks, whores, cowboys, pick-up trucks, guitars, drugs, money, gangs, streets, tiled floors, kitchen sinks, bars, apartments, love, fucks, tripping, sad...

an example

where a "traditional poem" would line like this:

we should have been racist but we rebelled and grew up mildly ignorant

a more acceptable poem would emphasize the breaks in the voice:

we should have been racist but we rebelled and grew up mildly ignorant

this new pattern would chop up the traditional syntax of the stanza, but would add more surprise and more emphasis to the important words in the poem.

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