[Newspoetry] 4NDRE: Calvin Trillin & The Onion

[William Gillespie]

Bill is absolutely correct.

Although there exist many types of poetry, including poetry you do not
like, there is no bad poetry. Poetry is good. Such a distinction
promotes your own aesthetic agenda at the expense of other people's, but
there is no scarcity of unwritten poetry to necessitate such a
competition. If you want to promote your own artistic agenda, then write
poetry, and make art. And make art, or engage with politics, to improve
the world, not to compete with other artists or activists.

If you find yourself unable to take yourself seriously without putting
down other artists, you do not get any points for putting down
Newspoetry. For one thing, we have gone to a great deal of trouble to
make ourselves very vulnerable to you: last year we showed you 366
poems, and you only showed us one. More seriously, Bill has accurately
pointed out that this forum - unlike any other - is open to the public,
and is enjoyed by inexperienced poets, people who aren't poets, and
people who don't even consider themselves writers or artists, many of
them vigorous activists, brought together by, among other things, a
desire to understand and respond immediately to the events of the world.
At least one Newspoet wrote their first ever poem for this site, and has
since written many poems, and was published in a literary journal. I am
very proud of having unhesitatingly encouraged them. Andy, I don't fully
understand why, but a lot of people are really shy about sharing their
writing, and everybody needs to practice in order to improve. Outside of
universities, few such spaces exist, and the publication of innovative
work is seriously threatened by a publishing industry marching toward
monopolization and mass commercialism. Also, my impression as a reader
of poetry is that topical poetry is not generally fashionable in
America. (I kind of have a thing for it. I like poetry about Nixon, I'm
weird.)

This site gets people to read the news, and to write, and I think that's
swell. I know of no other website offering either A. A poem a day,
year-round; B. An original (as opposed to republished) poem a day; or C.
Fresh poetry about the news. I know of no other literary forum as open
to contributions from any person, regardless of their resume. I'm not
saying such things don't exist, I just don't know about them yet.
Newspoetry is not meant to be exclusively academic poetry, and nobody
ever said a poem a day would be meticulous. I chose a poem a day, rather
than a slower, more contemplative rate, for various reasons: because
most news sources publish daily, to make the site tempting to revisit
(you can't resist, admit it), and because a lot of people have boring
computer jobs, and I wanted them to get paid for reading poetry. If you
don't like Newspoetry, then don't, but blanket criticism is useful only
to discourage everybody. Well, you won't discourage me, and probably not
Joe. I assure you that the existence of Newspoetry does not prevent the
existence of other poetry websites - I already gave you my idea for
www.impeccablepoetryclassics.com, offering a poem a century until the
end of time. (You can have that idea.)

<mailto:"letters at thenation.com">letters at thenation.com</a>

is the email address for letters to the editor of the Nation (they
request no more than 300 words). When you write them a message
complaining about Calvin Trillin, please CC us on it: we would love to
read it. (It's only fair!) You can mention that I stopped reading him
forever after he tried to rhyme "Lewinski." Also, take a look at
www.poems.com - those people, in my opinion, need politicizing, and
would benefit greatly from an inspirational email.

"I believe that the world is beautiful and poetry, like bread, is for
everyone" - Roque Dalton

Peace,
William

P.S. "snowevidence" kicks ass. Keep it up with the righteous newspoetry.
We love you guys, and benefit greatly from having west coast
correspondents, and I hope you'll hang in there despite all the
throat-clearing. You can always publish your bad stuff with us. [insert
emoticon here]