This Is A Good Place To Start A New Literary Movement / School.

Sounds like dogma to me, gotta watch those ism's http://www.abctales.com/story/willsimpson/theoryism

For whatever reason, I feel like giving this a shot. Well-wisher, thanks for the suggestion. However, I'm not going to write a true manifesto. Rather, I ask interested writers to read a random sampling of my extensive writings. Example is better than "dogma." And I won't need to wait for other writers and artists to "join my movement." Many will already belong, whether or not I know their works or they know mine, and whether or not they ever learn of this movement. FUSIONISTIC EXPANSIONISM "The fusional expanionist non-manifesto:" Ideas are the heart of literature. One somewhat talented poet once made a monstrously misguided statement that poetry should be "not ideas about the thing but the thing itself." This is completely false not just of poetry but of literature and all the higher arts... with the sometimes exception of the non-film visual arts. True ideas are the heart and soul of all the best novels, plays, poems, movies, essays, and all other mediums in which carefully chosen words are essential. Much of the time, true ideas are even the heart and soul of forms like painting, sculpture, and music. It is true and sound ideas that bring a story to life, that make literature important to the practical man of business or the factory worker at leisure. As a poet, I go to great lengths to find just the right sounds, punctuation, and line-breaks that will make for a compelling poem. But unless my poem expresses a true idea of some importance, it is 2nd rate; If it expresses no true idea at all, 3rd rate. The same goes for all forms of writing. But where do we get our true ideas and how do we know they're true? I'm not going to fully answer this complicated question. I will say perhaps the most important and under-rated way is the study of ancient writings, especially those admired by many for hundreds and thousands of years. The mere ancient age of a piece of literature greatly increases the chance that it has something to teach the modern thinker and writer. Finally, since it's ideas that truly matter in literature(and I firmly include film in literature,) we must not let barriers of form or genre keep us from expressing them. We should fuse genres: telling stories in poems, throwing long poems into movies and novels, and basically contorting technique, form, and convention to drive the idea home. But ideas are mostly very old: almost all of the most important ideas have been around for thousands and thousands of years. We should be slow to embrace new ideas that are believed at the moment, and look to older voices. But regarding technique and form, we should feel free to experiment and adapt to our globalistic, ultra-modern world. We can freely change and re-invent these things because they are not the heart of literature or art. I hope I've made some small sense here. And it's okay if you choose to use "Fusionistic Expansionism" as a term to describe the artistic principles laid out here, and more importantly those to be found in my own writing and art(which is widely available in book form and also for free across the internet.) You can also use the term to describe other writings, art, ideas, and statements that you feel are similar.

Your post gives me the impression that you write poetry for the masses and go to great links so they will like it. I'm by no means criticizing you, I haven't really met any poets so I don't know why they write, but for me, when I write, I am just putting to words what I am feeling at that moment, I've tried to take notes and write it later and I've found that doesn't work. I have written things for people that requested me to, usually in times of sorrow, but what I write still comes out however it may. I believe there's 2 kinds of poetry, there's the imaginative story that holds true to the principles of poetry, then there is the poetry of emotion. I have written a few rhyming storys and I did work hard on them to make them tell the story and also please the reader. I think these are the poems that feel like work, and the satisfaction from completing one is more in the line of a good days work and I say this in a respectful and appreciative way. Poetry of emotion uses little or no imagination and I have had the ability to describe how I feel. These poems tend to be personal in nature and yet I have found that there are more people who find some peace in discovering others that feel the way they do, they just couldn't describe what they feel. When you speak of ideas, they belong in the imaginative poetry which is geared for entertainment and do serve a purpose in life. As to the way you use phrases like 1st rate, 2nd rate and so on, I refuse to believe T.S. Elliots The WasteLand can be rated 1st rate and a poem of sorrow or great loss that brings comfort to a saddened soul runs second. In the scheme of things, which poem serves the greater good? You'll find Elliot on a book shelf but the emotional poem is framed and hanging on a wall. I'm not saying emotional poetry should be 1st rate, I'm saying that poetry as a whole is weakened when it is divided and then rated. Poetry to me is the last pure part of literature left. That's why poets never get rich like a Stephen King. Poetry is something we are born with, no one says I'm going to be a poet when I grow up, no, poets find themselves writing while still learning how to spell and making do with their limited vocabulary so they can tell that certain girl about roses are red and violets are blue. Poets discover that they see the world in a different light and when they share a poem with someone that likes it, the satisfaction has nothing to do with changing the world or selling a million copies, it's about the peace someone feels that didn't exsist until they read your poem, how can that be rated?

That last comment was brilliantly deep, I feel ya man, poets are born, it is a type. Anyone can write a poem, but only a poet can see poems in e\/ery aspect of life. As I walk through this town, with the rushing of the people, The ocean all around me, gently blowing, The gales of togetherness, connecting us all, The images of language, growing so tall. Bah!

I call my own movement Digital Ephemerism. Ideally it should spread and take over the literary world but most of it simply dissipates.

Many of you seem to have what I feel to be unfair contempt for well-wisher's suggestive prompt, and for my attempt to answer it. I'm sorry but there are such things as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rate literature. These are useful terms not of snobbery, but of insisting on literature as a serious art. 2nd rate often refers to quality writing that simply doesn't rise to the level of inspiration, or have the highest purposes to start with. Well-wisher may have used questionable wording such as "join" but the fact is that literary and artistic movements exist, matter, and have names. I don't think mine is likely to take root for a number of reasons, but is that any reason to scoff at me, or paint me as a silver-spoon villain? I live in poverty mostly because I chose to devote my life to philosophy, art, and literature... starting by choosing the latter as a college major rather than business, pre-law, or any number of more practical majors. I may be over-reacting here, but I think I have some fair points. And not all humor is fair or appropriate, in my old-fashioned opinion.

Since the only person who commented after sean was me I presume I'm the culprit. I admit my comment wasn't very funny or even pertinent but it wasn't addressed to anyone in particular.

Chuck, I edited my comment and this causes it to appear lower in the discussion. It was actually originally the 2nd response. But I was in the midst of personal problems when I last commented. I can't take everything back, and I won't erase it(for discussion's sake.) But I confess I QUITE over-reacted. And, Chuck, I still object to making a joke of this: but your comment isn't mean-spirited or in terrible taste or anything. Sort of funny, actually.

No Chuck, I believe he is refering to my comment and I would like to clarify to sean that as I stated I haven't met any poets so I am ignorant to the practices of how poetry or anything in literature for that matter is classified as great, good, or bad. I mean no harm with what I say and I certainly have no intentions of anything other than to discuss these things so as to understand them. We as human beings have an obligation to proclaim our opinions, disagreements, or maybe even better ideas, otherwise, we just become puppets to any prevailing train of thought. I am an old Pipefitter who has a penchant to write, I mingle with the blue collar, everyday people of this world who more often than not suffer from these practices of rating what is great, good, or bad as judged by who, I have no clue. I was raised by a Professor of Business and Administration and he just loves a good Louis L'Amour novel. I read War and Peace and in my opinion Stephen Kings The Stand, stands head and shoulders above it. If one was to read my writings, you will find that they are just things that inspired me at the time and were written without thought of how they will stand up to what the intellects judge as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd rate, yet, anyone that has read them has enjoyed them. Poetry is so misunderstood because our exposure to it comes at such an early age that we can not comprehend Whitman or T.S. Elliot in the 6th grade and we only know what we are taught, that these are the great ones while Dr. Suess and all his magnificent books, which I might add has been read far more times than either poets I mentioned, even isn't considered a poet, or at least I have never heard anyone refer to him as one. I am not attacking sean but he does represent the literature establishment and I'm sure he means no harm either with his views, I just wish he and all the other intellectuals would re-evaluate their positions and perhaps the rating procedures would cease and from this I believe new and fresh literature laiden with the attitude of today will rise up and be noticed and from that we can grow and obtain the potential that lies in all of us.

I think the closest thing to an ism that we have now is probably what Doug Coupland does. But he's avoided writing a manifesto. His latest book is Generation A. It's a mixture of imagination, extrapolation and clever one liners tied together by a world with no bees.