Wednesday 6 April 2011

Introducing NewPoetry.ca

George Murray, the driving force behind the popular book blog Bookninja.ca, is back with a new project: NewPoetry.ca.

Right now it's just a mission statement, but the future of this initiative looks promising. Here's a sample of what Murray proposes: 

A magazine that proposes themed issues, then builds them by inviting poets and performers from all genres and forms to interpret as they will.

The web is the first medium that I know of that can accommodate most, if not all, of the forms currently out there. Through text, image, audio, video, and multimedia, as well as whatever new technologies are to come, NewPoetry.ca will publish the best of everything we can find: lyrical, visual, dub, sound, narrative, formal, hip-hop, surreal, automatic, recitation, aural, slam, flarf, algorithmic generations… and whatever is to come!

We’ll do this by bringing in key representatives from as many fields of production as we can, many of whom previously found themselves on opposite sides of the editorial pages. We’ll ask these people to bring us the best from their forms and styles for each issue. And we’ll see what comes.

For too long a lot of the poetic discourse in Canada has been squelched out by a handful of shrieking personalities pushing their own aesthetic agendas. I welcome a level playing field where those with different approaches to poetry can build something together rather than squabble over whose aesthetic values are more valid. Right now, it's only a statement of principles, but I'm enthusiastic to see what develops here and to participate when I can.