Come, My Friends, Let’s Wage the Grand Poetic Revolution of Our Time
“A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible.”
— printed on the T-shirt of a lad at a beach store.
Today, as I launch my Patreon blog during this most blessed and most auspicious time of the year, I am also launching at the same time a global revolution in poetry. My kind of revolution is a radical change for the better, not a radical change for the worse. We keep what is good from the past, discard what is bad, and pursue a higher dream.
For the past several decades, modernitis gangs led by the Fascist propagandist Ezra Pound and other disturbed souls and minds have been rampaging and wreaking havoc in the field of Poesy, uglifying and idiotizing in the process this noble and sacred Art. It’s about time to put an end to this artless and ugly apostasy. It’s about time to tell them off in no uncertain terms: “Thus far and no further!”. It’s about time to stand, face and conquer!
The so-called modernists have been paying lip service to the Old Masters so they can inherit the aura, prestige and mantle of the latter’s great artistic legacy. Yet at the same time, they have been mocking, persecuting and marginalizing those who would follow in the Old Masters’ footsteps. Some of them join and infiltrate formalist poetry — especially the sonnet from the West and haiku from the East — only to deform and desecrate it.
Unable to measure up to the rigor and exacting standard of high poetry, which caused them so much misery and frustration, they lowered the poetic standard to their woeful level and foist the substandard result as the new, contemporary standard. And then they flog those who would not join them in their nasty rebellion against Beauty and Wisdom. This is not progress but retrogression. This is not newness in art but an old sourgraping trick of the mean in spirit and the poor in talent.
In sonneteering, for instance, the modernitis horde lead by Sonnet Central (and possibly Erastophere too) are glorifying enjambment while castigating those who observe the great poetical tradition of end stopping handed down from various cultures of the world. Well, let us warn them sternly that they who would stop in the middle of the street are bound to be run over by vehicles. Not that we prohibit enjambment. But we don’t regard it as part of the poetic standard but only as part of poetic license to ease up the lives of poets, both veterans and amateurs alike.
Some of these impious and sacrilegious sonneteers have also been endeavoring to establish as the new ideal the composition of sonnets that reel off like one long running sentence from beginning to end. This, my dear friends and foes in Poesy, is the unpoetic equivalent of a runny nose!
In the exquisitely beautiful minimalist field of haiku, the HSA-led modernitis syndicate are busy detaching this Oriental genre from its 5–7–5 mooring and also from its three-line format. Their haiku honchos are falling all over themselves in claiming that their formless haiku version is fast becoming the contemporary norm and new standard. Incidentally, they love very much to pat and scratch each other’s back by presenting each other’s poorly composed haiku pieces — as well as their own — as examples of what they claim to be the new haiku trend.
I don’t wish to rain on their parade but I’ve got bad news for them: the formless haiku is only trending in their own sponsored contests and in their own fevered minds. Everywhere else, the traditional 5–7–5 count enjoys popularity and predominance. Why, even the various dictionaries ignore the foolish antics of the modernists because lexicographers can’t make head or tail of it. Just read the definition of haiku in any reputable dictionary to see what I mean.
Several years ago, a poet described the modernists as “too Marxist”. Much as I disagreed with their kind of poetry, I just couldn’t lump together the modernists with the Marxists that I knew. Over the years, it occurred to me that the said poet was not referring to the Marxist ideological view per se … but to Marxist practices in group control and social control. Among other similar traits, they have the party line, the boring repetition of stock phrases, and the herd mentality which brings to mind a herd of mindless beasts.
Reminiscent of the deadly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist weapon of criticism and self-criticism, the modernists advocate and practice heartless critiquing of neophyte poets and of those who don’t belong to their own poetry cliques. Yet they can’t take a modicum of critiquing in return, screaming like spoiled brats and whining like over-aged crybabies if someone would do so.
And that is why out of the benevolence of my soul and the generosity of my heart, I decided about nine years ago to gift these fellows who are poor in spirit with a sonnet rhyme scheme of their own. It is the famous SC’s Crybaby Tear Flow (abba acca adda aa) which will go down in history as one of the most beautiful and most difficult sonnet rhyme schemes ever invented in the solar system, something by which they will be remembered by posterity long after we have colonized and terraformed the Red Planet.
I surmise the Erastophere poets can readily agree to that because they loved the said sonnet rhyme scheme very much. In fact, sometime in October 2009, they gathered together in an Antonine Coven or Antonine Conclave, whatever, to gush over the beautiful sonnet rhyme scheme and celebrate the good fortune that befell their Sonnet Central brethren.
Regarding the slaughter-style critiquing by modernists, it is this that enabled them to lord it over in poetry during the waning decades of the 2nd millennium until today. As you know, the classical forms of poetry are harder to compose and perfect. It’s just like the difficult programs in gymnastics and ice skating which earn high points if successfully executed but get a dismal grade if something goes awry.
So in the running battles between formalists and modernists, the latter can find many weak spots to attack in the compositions of the former, who are too stunned and embarrassed to strike back, self-conscious as they are of the shortcomings of their pieces. And that is why I am intent to share and reveal my secret techniques in poetry writing (as well as in verbal warfare) to fortify the ranks and strengthen the spines of lyrical and formalist poets so they can confidently confront and counterstrike against their modernitis tormentors.
In teaching poetry writing, I will start with the sonnet — which is dreaded even by veteran poets due to its “uber strict rules”, to borrow the words of a poet I once met in MySpace. Well, no worry and no problem: I have these special techniques that can turn a person of average intelligence into a sonneteer within seven days. Is that incredibly and unbelievably fast? Not really. It can in fact be done in one day or even in six hours … but never mind.
What I will impart are the basics, the solid basics, in writing a sonnet. If they follow my step-by-step guidance, aspiring poets can write their first sonnets within one week. After that, the new sonneteers can take their own sweet time in polishing their skill and mastering this poetic art, something that couldn’t be overly expedited by some special technique or magic formula. Nevertheless, I will provide a number of helpful tips, precious veritable trade secrets, so the devoted aspirants can more easily improve and master their art — especially with regards to rhyming, metric length, content enhancement and the iambic beat.
In any case, the modernitis cause is a losers’ cause. And the modernitis dream (such as the crazy and roundly-objected proposal to arrange the haiku world into a hokku-senryu-zappai pyramidal hierarchy) is a hopeless dream without tomorrow. All we need to do is declare it so and champion our superior Art and presto! — they will vanish away in defeat and ignominy, never again to lord it over the ranks and files of earnest poets, and never again to sully the noble and sacred citadel of Poesy.
They love to style themselves and their works as “contemporary poetry”. No, Sirs and Mesdames, you are not. We are. As everybody knows, “usurpation” and “usurpers” are both English words. The great tradition and principles in poetry represented by the Old Masters are still in full force and effect, even if you try to shunt them aside. As the famous line of John Keats goes: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” True Art is timeless and eternal; but silly fashion is seasonal and temporary. We who remain faithful to the ideals of the Old Masters are their rightful heirs and the true bearers of their Flame and in our hands its Light shall grow in brilliance and beauty.
Before I forget, I’ve got another bad news for the haiku honchos. I have perceived that promoting tanka — the second most popular poetic form from Japan (and the East as a whole) — has this wondrous effect of exposing the artistic and intellectual bankruptcy of modernitis adventurism and innovation. For if tanka which follows a 5–7–5 7–7 count would also go formless like haiku, it would be very difficult and confusing indeed to tell which is tanka and which is haiku because everything would disintegrate back into primeval formless chaos. On the other hand, if haiku would go formless but tanka would not, that would create a glaringly anomalous contrasting situation.
About a year ago, I read some tanka pieces of a gifted teenage girl from Ukraine. Her pieces observed the classical 5–7–5 7–7 tanka format and they were quite artistic and beautiful. I feel confident that there are other young poets out there in various corners of the global village who have the skill and talent to carry forward the grand tradition of excellence of the Old Masters. I summon them now from both West and East, from both North and South. Arise and step forward, O noble children of Mother Earth, and join me in waging the Grand Poetic Revolution of our time against the horrible army of formless and malformed poetry!
Nevertheless, the revolutionary work before us today is not confined to the young alone. To those belonging to the older generations like myself, I say we too have a vital role to play in establishing the great global Golden Age in Poetry during this the New Age. To quote the final section of “Ulysses”, an outstanding poem in blank verse written by the British poet laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson:
… Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Gird yourselves for battle then, for I am a general who loves to fight alongside grizzled veterans of many wars. Let us now train and assemble the grand TransFormalist army in poetry and, with a fierce and unyielding countenance, let us unsheathe our sharpened swords of war and employ them with extreme prejudice to vanquish the darkly horde of malformalist minions and formless fanatics. Let us liberate the Holy City of Poesy genre by genre from the wicked claws of modernitism!
And let us be ready to welcome back into our forgiving arms those who would realize the error of their ways, especially the innocent and unwary who were merely ensnared into the institutional traps laid out by the shrewd leaders of the modernitis school. They used to wield the levers of power through their control of schools, magazines, organizations, poetry award bodies and the like. With the onset of the Internet Age, they began to exercise control and coercion in cyberspace as well.
But they shall not pass! Their day is done! I declare it so. They will soon vanish into the night unmourned and unremembered except in unflattering terms.
I made special mention of the Sicily-originated sonnet and the two Japanese verse forms of haiku and tanka. But we will not confine our efforts on them. We shall also study, analyze, discuss and assess other poetic forms including balagtasan from my own country as well as sestina, villanelle and cinquain from Europe and ghazzal from Turkey, among many others. Brimming with artistic passion and inflamed by revolutionary fervor, we won’t just preserve and nurture the old beautiful poetic forms — we will also invent beautiful new ones. And we already had! Nor should we ignore free verse which is a legitimate type of poetry in its own right although belonging to a lesser category in terms of form and structure. From time to time, with your generous indulgence, I shall also post essays, articles and posters because I love to share ideas on sundry subjects even as I love to read and study the ideas of others.
The Aquarian Age deserves to sparkle and shine with the highest standard of poetry, not wallow in the murky psychedelic waters of its degraded and darkened counterfeit. By our individual and collective efforts, let us make this possible.
The new generations of poets should catch up and keep abreast with the Old Masters … and surpass the latter’s grand achievement eventually. That after all is the meaning and essence of progress in any field of human endeavor. That is also what a Revolution ought to be … a movement forward and upward, not backward and downward. That as well is the highest honor we can bestow on those who have gone ahead of us — that we build upon their past labors of love and raise Art to greater glory and Mankind to a higher level of existence.
Towards this end, my Patreon blog is adopting four strategies to achieve our poetic objectives, namely:
* First, produce excellent examples of formal, lyrical and classical types of poetry both from myself and fellow poetic revolutionaries.
* Second, undertake theoretical discussions concerning poetry starting with the sonnet from the West and haiku from the East but gradually including other poetic forms.
* Third, sponsor various poetry competitions year round offering competitive prizes and laying down clear criteria for judging — including monthly contests that blog members will vote on, periodic awards that I or a major patron or a panel of judges will adjudicate, and poetry competitions which we will co-sponsor with allied or like-minded organizations.
* And fourth, conduct poetry classes wherein I would share and reveal my secret techniques in writing classical and lyrical types of poetry so as to help elevate the current level of poetical skill and competence.
Before I close, allow me to express my deep gratitude to the prolific American poet and energetic poetry classifier Larry Eberhart and his blog followers for promoting my previous works in sonneteering (particularly on sonnet rhyme schemes) pro bono. I also appreciate very much my friendship and fellowship with fellow poets (Filipinos and foreigners alike) over the years … in Mobius Forum, Friendster, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, Sonnet Central, HubPages, Quora and elsewhere. Of course, I also learned a lot from those whom I encountered in adversarial fashion (both poets and flamers) along the Path of my arduous journey. I don’t mind quarreling and disputing with them forever and a day; but I would be dishonest to deny their contributions to the development of my poetic ideas.
For the longest time, I have been more fascinated with the loftier and more rarefied affairs of Mount Olympus. But I am now resigned to the fact that my duty lies in Mount Helicon and Mount Parnassus. So be it. I have embraced my destiny. Thus today, in this mysterious and magical realm of Poesy, I hereby solemnly declare: Let the Revolution begin!
— Jose Rizal M. Reyes
Only Herald to the Gaudy Spring
November 11, 2018
Join and support the Grand Poetic Revolution. Visit our global headquarters at Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/22629502
I have posted 33 items for the general public and 300 items for paying patrons. Hundreds of other poems will be posted in the coming days and months together with a few essays, articles and posters.
