The Halls of Madness

I just started up Kingdom of Loathing a week ago or so. I'm a Pastamancer (Boyaddee)!

I just started up Kingdom of Loathing a week ago or so. I'm a Pastamancer (Boyaddee)!

I just started up Kingdom of Loathing a week ago or so. I'm a Pastamancer (Boyaddee)!

Why does everything seem so stagnant these days?

It seems like poetry has been darn well shut out in the recent years; I perform at a coffeehouse, and it's just me and about ten guitar players...

Now I'm fostering an idea that all those sorts of "emo" BS that gets wrongfully labeled as "poetry" all across MySpace and any blog available has been a significant nail in poetry's coffin. Aside from these sorts of posts, it would seem as if poetry is all too often written poorly and put out in the open where it only goes on to trivialize the style itself.

I write poetry from time to time in the vein of Lovecraft and Poe, but it's always done with a consideration for various literary features and style. I use all sorts of misdirection and planning to create a more meaningful result. On the contrary, the stuff on MySpace would seem to be "OMG, you dumped me, life is pain, waahhh!!!" and hopes to achieve depth by throwing in copious amounts of allusion to suicide.

For instance, one of my acquaintances on Facebook posted this horrendous thing where competency was confused with "depth". I hadn't the heart to tell her because she's a lot younger and it wouldn't do anyone any good at this point. And just two days ago there was another by a friend of mine (but it did lead me to running a flash fiction contest, as strange as it sounds). Not to mention that post here on Byond from about a week ago. :D

People I talk to and I often view poetry as cliched, so I'm really trying to take some time off and come up with something new.

I expect a poetic resurgence in the future, but I can't wait.

Getting back to the flash fiction contest, I arrived to that conclusion after thinking about how people typically read while online or in any published text; you need to fast and concise to catch the attention of a people with apparently too little time on its hands to bother with "culture" and "literacy". While I see flash fiction as a very beautiful and brief form when done correctly, it still bothers me that narratives have had to be whored out into microscopic pieces in order to be read and appreciated by the general populace (which coincides with the fact that the general populace sucks).