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Young Writers Society


Squills 7/11/2022 - 7/25/2022



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Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:58 am
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Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!
What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, including but not limited to: articles about writing, art, and the world of humanities; interviews with YWS members; shameless plugs; link round-ups; and opinionated columns.
And where will all of this come from? Take a look at our fantastic creative staff!

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Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:02 am
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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: HORISUN
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written by Liminality< PM: >

This FM’s observations make for witty poems and pithy wall statuses. If you keep an eye on the People’s Tab, you are likely to know this famous name. Besides that, they are also an in-depth reviewer. Currently, they seem well on their way to getting their second blue star.

The FM in question is . . . @Horisun! Four years ago, Horisun joined the site. Selected as FM once before in October 2019, this year they returned to the spotlight on the YWS homepage. Squills had the chance to interview them about their reaction to getting FM, their favourite parts of the site, and more.

Squills: Hi there Horisun!

A belated congratulations on FM! Squills, the YWS Newsletter, does a column interviewing Featured Members. I was wondering if you'd be okay with answering a few questions?


Horisun: Thank you! And yes, of course!

S: Great to hear! Could you describe what your reaction was like when you first found out you were FM?


H: I was quite caught off guard, to be perfectly frank. I had already been nominated not too long ago, and I wasn't even aware you could receive the honor twice! I figured there had to be some kind of mistake. Once I got over my initial shock, though, it's safe to say I was very excited!

S: That must have been quite the surprise! Do you have any thoughts on what earned you FM this time?


H: With school coming to a close for the Summer, I finally had some time to dedicate towards the Young Writers Society. So being active again after an extended period of time definitely had a lot to do with it.

S: Is there a particular area of the site you've enjoyed being active in the most?


H: I always like reading novels posted in the Green Room, but when I'd like to procrastinate on reviewing, I'll usually end up scrolling endlessly through the peoples tab.

S: Both are definitely fun places to be on YWS! Finally, do you have any advice for someone who aspires to become FM?


H: Just keep doing what you've been doing. The most important thing is being active, whether you write, review, or just have positive interactions with other members!

S: That's excellent advice! Thanks so much for doing this interview, and congrats once again on FM!


H: Thank you as well!

If you have yet to do so, please join us in congratulating Horisun on their FM thread or on their wall!





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Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:02 am
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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: LADYMYSTERIO
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written by looseleaf< PM: >

This FM is known throughout YWS for her sense of humor, mild (?) Loki obsession, entertaining wall posts, and taking part in the All for Show? roleplay.
And, despite being here for almost three years now, she was nominated rather recently (May 19 - June 3). For this edition of Squills, I interviewed @LadyMysterio about her time as FM. Read it below!

Squills: Hey LadyMysterio! I'm a reporter with Squills and was wondering if you wanted to do an FM interview!

LadyMysterio: Hello. I'd love to do an interview.

S: Alright! First off, how did you feel when you logged on and found out you were the featured member?

L: I was in complete disbelief. I was in the middle of a mall being my moms fashion advisor when I decided to randomly log onto yws . I was a very distracted fashion advisor after that XD I also got Fm around the same time I graduated high-school which was very nice.

S: What great timing! So, what do you think you did to be FM?

L: i have absolutely no idea what I did. I don't think I've ever done anything noteworthy on here. I'm very honored though.

S: You’ve done plenty of noteworthy things here! :) What is your favorite part of YWS (the one you spend the most time in, etc.)?

L: Humm, probably the people's wall, I love the community here. Everyone's pretty cool.

S: Are you planning on participating in Roleplay Month/Camp NaNo?

L: I am not, however, I have plans to do NaNo! I'm very excited for it. I may do a few roleplays if I have time this month. Roleplays are fun for me since I love acting(and characters in general)

S: Roleplays are super fun. Finally, do you have any advice for people who want to be FM?

L: Oh goodness, um since I don't know what I did to be fm, I'd say, just have fun on the site, be kind, and participate in things.

While LadyMysterio is no longer featured member, you can wish her a belated congratulations on her wall or in her FM thread !





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Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:03 am
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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: SALISRUINEN
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written by Liminality< PM: >

Joining us for this interview is an FM who writes detailed and encouraging reviews. They are working on a fantasy/action novel called Iceflame. You will have encountered them chain-reviewing stories from the ‘Books’ section of the Literary Center. In just three-and-a-half months, they have already achieved two review stars! For all this and more, @SalisRuinen became FM in late June 2022. Recently, Squills had the chance to learn about Salis’s writing goals and their advice for aspiring FMs.

Squills: Hi Salis!

Congrats on FM! Squills, the YWS Newsletter, has a column coming out each edition where we interview Featured Members. Would it be alright if I asked you a few questions?


SalisRuinen: Hello and thank you!

I would love to answer any questions you have for me! I'll be busy at work today, though, so my responses will come with quite a delay. If that is not issue, we can start right away. In case I need to answer the questions fast, we'll have to postpone the interview a bit.


Sq: No worries, you can answer whenever you have the time! The first question is . . . what was your reaction when you first found out you were FM?


Sa: My initial reaction was complete and utter shock. And when that passed I screamed a little because of how happy I was - luckily for me there was no one else in the room at the time to hear that!

Sq: FM is certainly something to celebrate and be happy about! Do you have any thoughts on what might have earned you FM?


Sa: In truth I have no idea how I was chosen! All I do is upload chapters of my novel and write reviews for a couple of series I'm following, much like many other members of the Society.

Sq: Well, being an FM is just being a good member of YWS, and that seems to show here! What are your current hopes / goals for working on your novel and uploading it to the site?


Sa: What was initially planned as a single novel has now become two novels and I finished uploading the chapters for the first one not too long ago, so now my main hope is to manage to upload the chapters for the second one as soon as possible! I also want to eventually add some artwork to the chapters to give the readers a better idea of what the characters and the environment look like.

Sq: That sounds really interesting! Best of luck with your project! Finally, do you have any advice for anyone who aspires to become FM?


Sa: Thank you! As for those aspiring to become FM, I'd say they need to dedicate as much time to the Society and its members (whether by writing content for those members or reviewing other people's content) as they can. The key to success is supporting each other, after all.

Sq: That's wonderful advice! Thank you so much for doing this interview and congrats once again on FM!


Sa: Thank you! It was a pleasure doing the interview!

If you have yet to congratulate Salis on FM, join us in doing so on their FM thread or on their wall!





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Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:04 am
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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: MOONGLADE
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written by Liberty < PM: >

Guess what guys?? We’re catching up on the Featured Member interviews! It’s going great, and for this article, we’ve got a featured member from the 7th of April! They are super active in the Randomosity section, so you are bound to have bumped into them. They’ve been working on many roleplays and actually have started their first novel, which they plan on completing. :) It’s called Beware of the Light ; you should check it out someday, it sounds amazing!

YWS’ featured member for April 7th was… @moonglade! Congratulations!

Squills: Hello! I'm a journalist for the YWS newspaper. :) Sorry that this is a little belated, but would you still be up for an FM interview for Squills?

Moonglade: I'd love to do an interview!

S: Awesome! To start off, what was your initial reaction to when you realized you were chosen as FM?

M: Well, I had just woken up and was scrolling down the People's Tab. Over the next few seconds, I had almost simultaneously dropped my computer and knocked over a pile of books. To say the least, I was ecstatic, not everyone gets to be FM and it just seemed crazy that I hadn't even been on the site for 6 months yet.

S: Aww, haha, that must have felt amazing! And yes, truly, not everyone does get to be FM, so why do you think the High Court of YWS chose you?

M: To be honest, I don't think there was any one reason. When I was chosen NaPo hadn't been over for too long, I definitely think that was the main reason but I think the "Randomosity Rush" and how active I was were contributed as well.

S: Yeah! I'd definitely agree with you on that one! You mentioned NaPo, poems obviously must be a part of your life somehow. Tell me more about that. And in general too, anything else you like doing on YWS.

M: I’m very usually a highly sensitive person and tend to be overwhelmed by emotions, poetry is such an amazing way to express those emotions. My best poems are from the heart and a lot of the time when I truly like what I have written it does uncover the small little anxieties I have.

Other than poetry, I am a fond novel writer, though since NaPo I have struggled with the pure longevity of novels. I hope I may be able to contribute more to that aspect of things during Camp NaNo and NaNoWriMo itself in maybe shorter bursts akin to a longer poem.


S: That is a very poetic answer! Lovely! You mentioned poetry and novel writing, and those are pretty big parts of the site. What's your favorite part of YWS?

M: Other than writing. Most definitely, Randomosity. I was lucky enough to join just when the “Randomosity Rush” had started and I met a lot of new people on the site through it. I don’t think I would ever have felt as at home as I do now if I hadn’t been able to experience that.

S: That sounds really fun! You must have made some amazing new friends during that time. :) But... What exactly is the Randomosity Rush? Is it like an official title for something, or...?

M: The Randomosity Rush is not an official title. Just something I came up with it. By it I mean last year December and early this year, particularly February, when Randomosity just blew up. Shady and Namedy (MailicedeNamedy) got something crazy like 8 000 forum posts each in February. (Back when we were necromancing all the way to the fifth page.)

A lot of the new and old games that have been talked about in Squills were either created during this time or popularised. Such as the major trend of counting games and games to do with numbers as they are very fast paced and presented a way for anyone to quickly rack up forum posts.


S: Very creative of you! And whoa, sounds like it was busy down in those forums. Now, I'm going to start wrapping up this interview. If someone were to come to you and ask for advice on how to become a featured member, what would you say?

M: Be you and be active is something that has always stuck with me. Participate on the site where you most enjoy it. Don’t force yourself to do things you don’t want to, nothing comes from that. Nurture your abilities even if it is as simple as having some plain, old fun. I promise you that it will always benefit you because at the very least you enjoyed it.

S: Exactly! Having fun and enjoying yourself is super important. :) Other than that, do you have any shout outs to make or anything else to say?

M: There are so many people that have helped me so much during my time on YWS. To name a few: WeepingWisteria; MailicedeNamedy and Shady.

I really would to thank everyone on YWS for always being so welcoming and I really hope that this community will always be so close and loving. To all the mods thank you for all your continuous work. Thank you so much to those I singled out, you have affected who I as YWSer am and I am so grateful to be friends with you.


Isn’t that so sweet!

That's it for the interview! I had so much fun chatting with you, and can't wait to see you shine around YWS. Thank you for your time!





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Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:05 am
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POETRY THROUGHOUT THE AGES: POETIC SCHOOL QUIZ
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written by Liminality< PM: >

Welcome back to another edition of PTA! (That is, Poetry Throughout the Ages, not Parent-Teachers’ Association.) Poetic movements such as Romanticism are staples of the English literature we study in schools. Here, we will look at some schools and movements of poetry from the twentieth century. Our medium? A personality quiz! Sort of.

The quiz questions are all about aspects of poetry the selected movements were concerned with. To answer the quiz, select the option that you most agree with for each question. Please record the number of 'A's and 'B's etc. you select. The most frequent alphabet will indicate your main result in the following PTA section. These results are more of a measure of selective agreement with certainn principles and will likely not reveal who you are as a poet. After all, who knows? Maybe you actually disagree with all of these schools. Nevertheless, give it a go and see what's there to learn along the way.

1. What do you believe about poetic language?
    a) It should be concise
    b) It should be free
    c) It cannot be separated from the physicality of reading, listening, or touching
    d) It should not be taken seriously
    e) It should be speech-like

2. What is the smallest unit of poetry?
    a) The musical phrase
    b) Poetry doesn’t come in small units
    c) Oh, it depends, it could be a syllable, it could be a single symbol, a fold in a piece of paper . . .
    d) Anything you want it to be
    e) The syllable

3. Who does a modern poet write for?
    a) An elite group of people
    b) Anyone, really, but especially those interested in “new rhythms” and “new moods”
    c) People that share their values
    d) Everyone, including themself
    e) Who? Were poets supposed to be writing for someone?

4. What do you think about Ezra Pound?
    a) Pound knew his stuff
    b) Pound was right about some things but he was way too picky
    c) I’d consider myself a follower of him
    d) Who?
    e) Love the guy, hate his politics

5. Do non-linguistic symbols like slashes, flowers, asterisks belong in poetry?
    a) Only asterisks, and only for footnotes, sometimes
    b) Does it make the image clearer?
    c) Absolutely
    d) Yes, just don’t be pretentious about it
    e) A slash or two is fun

6. Which line of poetry resonates most with your idea of a good poem?
    a) Apples on the small trees/ are hard, / too small, / too late ripened
    b) And I scald alone, here, under the fire / Of the great moon.
    c) None of these resonate. I need a picture.
    d) We look up the sky / the earth gives birth / to our future
    e) Dark / the sharp lift of the fins.

7. Pick another line of poetry you like.
    a) Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths
    b) Most of all I believe / In gods of bitter dullness, / Cruel local gods / Who seared my childhood.
    c) This.
    d) a house of dust, on open ground, lit by natural light, inhabited by friends and enemies
    e) lights between & delicate / lavenders also

Read on below for your results!





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POETRY THROUGHOUT THE AGES: SOME TWENTIETH CENTURY POETIC MOVEMENTS
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written by Liminality< PM: >

As the title implies, this is a narrow selection of a few poetic schools that were founded (and sometimes ended) in that time period, with brief explanations. Please first take the quiz above and then use these write-ups as points of further exploration!


The Imagisms (‘A’ and ‘B’s)


Made up of strong personalities, Imagism was followed by poets that each had a unique take on the school’s tenets. Here we will discuss what some recognise as two ‘phases’: let us call them Pound-led Imagism and Lowell-led Imagism. They both shared an emphasis on presenting concrete and specific images. [25] Think ‘a big, fat cloud’ rather than ‘the weather of holidays’. Besides this, they made a conscious movement away from Victorian styles of poetry. [19]

In 1912, core Imagists Ezra Pound, H. D. and Richard Aldington, agreed on the following principles: [26]



1. Direct treatment of the “thing” whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.



This began the early phase of Imagism that was led and curated by Ezra Pound.


If you had mostly ‘A’ answers . . . Pound-led Imagism


Ezra Pound was a modernist poet who took inspiration from Greek, Chinese and Japanese classical poetry, producing translations in English of the poems he read. What he thought was special about these traditions was their rhythms, in comparison to the meter-based rhythms of most English poetry at the time. [1] Seeing a lot of meter-based poetry as inauthentic, he would conclude that it was not following meter, but something else, that made the rhythm of a poem. Hence, he used the term “musical phrase”.

The Imagists wrote for an “elite” audience. Pound tried to promote a kind of homogeneity among the poets in ‘his’ group. For example, ‘Des Imagistes’, the first Imagist anthology was edited by Pound. Lacking any kind of preface or explanation of its aims, it has been said to be driven by “Pound’s unstated logic”. [4] Pound chose the poets, the arrangements, and which of the poets’ work should be included. [4]

As can be seen in principle #2 above, Pound-led Imagists were particularly big on word economy. Imagist poems “give the impression of having been compressed”. [15] Instead of using more words, poets would use tone to imply narratives and information left literally unsaid in the poem. One example of this is Ezra Pound’s ‘Villanelle: The Psychological Hour’: [15]

    I had over-prepared the event –
    that much was ominous.

The event is never elaborated on in an explicit way, but the way the speaker speaks about it suggests something dreaded and regrettable. Pound initially did not add footnotes to explain his poems but started doing so later in his career. What made his footnotes different from others at the time was that they usually referred to lines within the same poem, or to other similar poems, to explain an image or point, rather than referring to the text or event it was alluding to. Some argue this forces the reader to do more active reading, perceiving their own meanings by comparing the lines or poems, as opposed to having an interpretation set out for them via reference to a traditional frame of interpretation. [20] For example, consider a footnote that takes you to three poems deemed similar in meaning by the author, as opposed to one that explains what a villanelle is and why the poem is called ‘Villanelle: The Psychological Hour’.

Some argue that Imagism was not a truly avant-garde movement, separating it from the others included here. It did not try to create something totally new, but rather tried to revive the ways of ancient poets. For example, in 1913, Pound wrote praising Euripides and the Greek lyric poets. [10] Nevertheless, as we will see later, Pound’s work inspired movements that did consider themselves avant-garde.

You may already know this, but Pound has been a controversial figure for his Fascism and anti-Semitism. Though initially a supporter of the English Social Credit movement, a different political ideology but with some similar ideas, Pound converted to Fascism after he moved to Italy in 1927, during the time of Benito Mussolini’s regime. [9] Whether these ideas have influenced his poetry is a point of debate.

Many poets, such as Robert Creeley, would disavow Pound’s political tendencies while still applying his principles to their work and making something new out of them. [6] Some would also argue that not Pound himself, but rather the poets he associated with, best embodied the poetry of early Imagism. H.D. is one such example. Her poem, ‘Hermes of the Ways’, is featured in question 6 of the quiz for this result. Question 7 features a line from Richard Aldington’s ‘Choricos’.


If you had mostly ‘B’ answers . . . Lowell-led Imagism

Amy Lowell was born in 1874, growing up in a wealthy family. Lowell is said to have taken female lovers and encoded depictions of lesbian sexuality in her poetry. [13] She was a prolific poet, though she became more well-known for her publishing work and for writing a biography of John Keats.

She was significant in bringing together the Imagist poets after Pound began to diverge from the movement. [23] An internal divide led many former Imagists to desire a group that excluded Pound. Amy Lowell became their leader.

Lowell disagreed with Pound’s selectiveness in choosing poems. In fact, she even wrote a poem about it. You can read the piece here. In the anthologies published during Lowell’s time, poets were allowed to choose and arrange their own works. In fact, Lowell refused to be publicly listed as the editor. [4] In a way, the Imagists became a freer and more diverse collective.

Indeed, the Imagism of Lowell’s era was less homogenous than Pound’s. One place where poets notably diverged was on the concept of ‘compression’, or principle #2. Lowell wrote with a “prodigality”, that is, a tendency towards excess in all aspects of her writing, including word count. [19] The Imagists of this era emphasized a kind of looseness in their association with each other as stated in the preface to ‘Some Imagist Poets’:



We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not represent an exclusive artistic sect . . .



The same preface declares that Imagists aim to create “new rhythms” and “new moods”. Imagists shared something in common with a lot of avant-garde movements, which was a disdain for what they thought were outdated, overused and banal ways to write poetry. Imagists in Lowell’s circle reaffirmed the need to present precise images. [16]

Lowell also promoted the use of the term ‘cadence’ to describe rhythm. This term has been defined as a unit of poetic rhythm that is non-metered. [2] This KB article about how to write in iambic pentameter shows what metered poetic rhythm is, in comparison. In her preface to ‘Sword Blades and Poppy Seed’, which is quoted below, [17] Lowell explained that she used cadence to translate the French term ‘vers libre’. As compared to prose, poems in ‘unrhymed cadence’ contain more stress, and have strict rules, only that instead of following a pre-set meter, the line breaks must be determined by one’s natural pattern of pauses in speech.



Merely chopping prose lines into lengths does not produce cadence, it is constructed upon mathematical and absolute laws of balance and time.



A poem by Amy Lowell, called ‘The Letter’ , is featured in the options for question 6. The quote in question 7 for the ‘B’ answer is from ‘Childhood’ by Richard Aldington. You can find it on page 3 of this digitized edition of Some Imagist Poets.

If you had mostly ‘C’ answers . . . Noigandres

The Noigandres movement emerged in the 1950s. It was formed in Brazil, by a group of artists and poets. [7] They viewed themselves in part as followers of Ezra Pound. [5] The name ‘Noigandres’ is one of Pound’s neologisms, which appeared in his Canto 20 as an invented Provençal word. [8]

Noigandres can be said to be one of the originators of concrete poetry, which is poetry that heavily incorporates physical spaces and uses elements such as colour and font to convey meaning. Poems can also be three-dimensional, or have accompanying audio. [3] Their manifesto was called the ‘pilot plan for concrete poetry’, in all small letters. It was published in the fourth issue of the journal Noigandres. An excerpt of it can be read here . The following are some quotes from the manifesto:



concrete poem communicates its own structure: structure-content. concrete poem is an object in and by itself, not an interpreter of exterior objects and/or more or less subjective feelings.



Noigandres poets wanted words themselves to be the object of the reader’s gaze. Normally, we focus on the abstract function of words. For example, the word ‘apple’ is a representation of an apple in the real world. ‘apple’ is a noun and behaves like a noun within the framework of language. However, Noigandres poets wanted to take the word out of language and turn it into a multi-sensory experience of its own.Verbicovisual was the term they used to described many of their works, which tried to incorporate visual, auditory and abstract elements into one cohesive, simultaneous experience [8]This website has an embedded Soundcoud playlist of verbicovisual pieces by a few Noigandres poets.

Below is another quote from the Noigandres manifesto:



against a poetry of expression, subjective and hedonistic. to create precise problems and to solve them in terms of sensible language. a general art of the word. the poem-product: useful object.



Noigandres poets shared a trend towards a kind of ‘objectivity’ among the avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. For instance, they did not write with a speaker or an ‘I’ voice in mind. [5] By removing the ‘subject’ from the equation, they aimed to make the poem more objective.

The Noigandres poets emphasized the physical aspect of the reading experience. [8] The lack of linearity in their poems expresses this. In speech and spoken word poetry, you can only listen to one word at a time, so you can only read in one straight line. On paper, though, through the use of the horizontal space, reading becomes non-linear. Unlike other schools of poetry, Noigandres emphasised this difference in their concrete works on paper. [8]

In an interview, Augusto de Campos described concrete poetry and his movement as “traumatic” for Brazil, “provoking passions and hatreds that survive even now”. He views this poetic group as a kind of challenge to the mainstream culture, [12] as are most avant-garde groups.

de Campos says about the Noigandres movement:



I believe it was born out of a critical reflection which must be associated with the revision and recuperation of the values of experimental art after the paralysis brought on by the catastrophe of World War II.



The Noigandres artists worked to restore these values, and this was their primary unifying characteristic, as opposed to having a particular audience base.

Augusto de Campos’s ’o quasar’ is the piece linked as the Noigandres answer in Question 7.

If you had mostly ‘D’ answers . . . Fluxus

Though poetry played a comparatively minor role in this artistic movement, the playful and anti-elitist [27] poems produced by Fluxus are noteworthy. One interesting experiment of theirs was the following poem, which is also featured as the Fluxus answer in Question 7:

    a house of (list material) (list location) (list light source) (list inhabitants)

After a 1967 seminar by James Tenney, Alison Knowles wrote the above on a computer programming language called Fortran. The sections in the brackets were randomly generated. [28]

Fluxus’s core tenets were expressed by George Maciunas in his 1963 manifesto. The manifesto itself is a kind of artwork, a collage of dictionary definitions for ‘flux’ and Maciunas’s handwritten additions. ‘Purge’ is the first principle, meaning to flush away intellectual, overly abstract or elitist art forms – what he calls “Europanism”. Secondly, the manifesto championed a ‘tide’ of art that would be created by “all peoples”, meaning everyone, not just designated artists or people with a certain kind of education. The third principle is ‘Fuse’. This one generally reflects the aspiration of Fluxus as a collective, a big team, but also specifically shows Maciunas’s leanings towards revolution in culture and politics across borders. You can view the manifesto at this link as an embedded image.

For Fluxus, there is art in everyday life. [22] Fluxus artist Yoko Ono is known for a a music track composed from toilet flushing sounds. She has been called “the most famous Fluxus artist of all”. [11] The Fluxus philosophy was also developed in works such as ‘Painting to Be Stepped On’. Ono placed a piece of canvas in a public place and wrote words on it that invited onlookers to step on it. [29]

Besides this, humour was integral to Fluxus works. This is demonstrated in another poem by Yoko Ono that is quoted in Question 6. (Warning: the full poem contains a swear.) This poem suggests every day, sometimes vulgar things that would not be displayed in the typical art museum. Nonetheless, Fluxus poets would argue that they can be genuine art. [27]

If you had mostly ‘E’ answers . . . Black Mountain Poets

The Black Mountain poets took their name from an experimental college in North Carolina. [24] The people who lived and worked there, as well as those associated with them, became part of a movement of poetry that was fluid and rhythmic, with an aesthetic of ‘organicness’.



. . . one perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception . . .



Black Mountain poets emphasized process rather than product. [18] One of their aphorisms is the above quote, first said by Edward Dahlberg and subsequently cited by Charles Olson in their first manifesto, Projective Verse. Olson called this the “principle of kinesis”. [18]

Black Mountain poets emphasized the patterns of poetry, rather than specific words. For Denise Levertov, poetry was something that had an inherent form. Composing according to this form would be ‘organic poetry’. Levertov believed poets entered a kind of spiritual experience when inspired, when they could perceive the inherent form of the poem they intended to write. Poetic devices, which are essentially patterns of rhythm and language, are the only way we can convey how we actually perceive this inherent form. She used the example of her son’s drawings. To convey the experience of a jousting tournament, he had to put down patterns of featureless grey circles. Though the people in those crowds were not actually featureless or grey in colour, the experience has this inherent form. [14] They were featureless and grey because the individual features of strangers in a crowd were not important. They were circles because the general shape of the human head represented in masses could depict the idea of a crowd.

Meanwhile, Charles Olson’s concept of ‘energy’ and ‘breath’ in ‘Projective Verse’ placed the foundation of poetry in spoken word, as opposed to individual words on the page. To him, the smallest unit of poetry was the syllable. Olson called his ideal writing technique ‘composition by field’. The ‘breath’ would be balanced by ‘ear’, the poet’s draw towards the energy inherent to the poem had to be modulated by a sense for how the syllables were arranged to produce sounds. Non-linguistic symbols might also be used for printed poems, for example Olson supported using a slash to represent a pause that was lighter than that indicated by a comma. Olson’s preference for the ’smallest’ unit over something like a line was because arrangement by syllables made the poem more agile. Thus, good poetry for him was to be made using a spiritual sense and also a quick wit. [21] However, this did not necessarily mean that poetry became just like talking, like conversation. Robert Creeley expressed in an interview with Linda Wagner that he never thought of an audience while writing poetry. [6]

Many Black Mountain poets were influenced by Imagists. For example, Hilda Morley was actually named after H.D., who became a mentor for her. [18] The sentiment about Ezra Pound in the Black Mountain answer in Question 4 belongs to Robert Creeley. [6] In turn, Black Mountain thought influenced famous poets such as William Carlos Williams, whose autobiography quotes heavily from ‘Projective Verse’. [21]

The Black Mountain College historically was an androcentric (that is, male-dominated and centered) enterprise, despite many notable women working within it. Hilda Morley described sexist attitudes within the college that limited women’s roles to nurturing and supporting men and children. [18] Recently, female poets from this movement have gained more attention. For example, one article focuses on Morley and cites a quote from Denise Levertov claiming that Morley more than other Black Mountain poets had embodied ‘composition by field’. [18]

The Black Mountain answer for Question 6 is a line from Denise Levertov’s ‘The Sharks’. Question 7 quotes a line from Hilda Morley’s ‘That Bright Grey Eye’.

Prompts

We weren’t about to let you go without a prompt to take away from this article! Link me a poem you wrote based on one of these challenges on my Author’s Page and I will send you 100 points.

1. Imagism: write a poem. Then cut as many words as you possibly can from it to produce a second version of the poem that feels like it has been ‘compressed’. (Preferably, link me both versions of the piece for comparison!)

2. Noigandres: write a concrete poem. You can use this for inspiration. Bonus 15 points if you can make it ‘verbicovisual’.

3. Fluxus: write a poem that occurs by chance. Interpret this creatively.

4. Black Mountain: write a poem that incorporates a lot of movement.


References
Spoiler! :

[1] Academy of American Poets. (n-d). About Ezra Pound. Poets.org. https://poets.org/poet/ezra-pound

[2] Allen, C. (1948). Cadenced Free Verse. College English, 9(4), 195-199.

[3] Aube, C. & Perloff, N. (2017, March 23). What Is Concrete Poetry? Getty. https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/what-is-concrete-poetry/

[4] Bellew, P. B. (2017). At the Mercy of Editorial Selection: Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and the Imagist Anthologies. Journal of Modern Literature, 40(2), 22–40. https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.40.2.02

[5] Clüver, C. (2007). The Noigandres Poets and Concrete Art. Ciberletras, 17, 57-117. https://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras ... SSUE17.pdf

[6] Creeley, R. (1993). Tales out of school: selected interviews. The University of Michigan Press. https://archive.org/details/talesoutofs ... e/mode/2up

[7] Eppley, C. (2015, 21 January). Concrete Poetry of the Noigandres, 1958-1975. Avant.org. http://avant.org/event/noigandres/

[8] Erber, P. (2012). The Word as Object: Concrete Poetry, Ideogram, and the Materialization of Language. Luso-Brazilian Review, 49(2), 72–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23359005

[9] Ferkiss, V. C. Ezra Pound and American Fascism. The Journal of Politics 17, no. 2 (1955): 173–97. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2126463

[10] Firchow, P. E. (1981). Ezra Pound’s Imagism and the Tradition. Comparative Literature Studies, 18(3), 379–385. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40246277

[11] Goldsmith, K. (Host). (2010, June 2). Sounds of Fluxus [Audio podcast episode]. In Avant-Garde All the Time. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcas ... -of-fluxus

[12] Greene, R. (1992). From Dante to the Post-Concrete: An Interview With Augusto de Campos. The Harvard Library Bulletin, 3 (2), 19-35. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42663103

[13] Lauter, P. (2004). “Amy Lowell and Cultural Borders”. In Amy Lowell, American Modern. Munich, Adrienne & Bradshaw, Melissa. (eds). New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press. https://books.google.com.my/books?id=u5 ... er&f=false

[14] Levertov, D. (1965). Some Notes on Organic Form. Poetry. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articl ... 249032078f

[15] Longenbach, J. (2011). Poetic Compression. New England Review (1990-), 32(1), 164–172. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23053377

[16] Lowell, A. (2009, October 13). Preface to Some Imagist Poets. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articl ... gist-poets

[17] Lowell, A. (1997). Sword Blades and Poppy Seed. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1020

[18] Mullenneaux, L. (2015). Hilda Morley: Lost on Black Mountain. New England Review, 36(4), 83–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24772681

[19] Munich, A. & Bradshaw, M. (2004)Amy Lowell, American Modern New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press.

[20] Nichols, J. G. (2006). Ezra Pound’s Poetic Anthologies and the Architecture of Reading. PMLA, 121(1), 170–185. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486295

[21] Olson, C. (1950). Projective Verse. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articl ... tive-verse

[22] Phillpot, C. (n-d.) FLUXUS: MAGAZINES, MANIFESTOS, MULTUM IN PARVO. George Maciunas Foundation. http://georgemaciunas.com/about/cv/manifesto-i/

[23] Poetry Foundation. (n-d). Amy Lowell. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-lowell

[24] Poetry Foundation. (n-d). Black Mountain Poets. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/ ... tain-poets

[25] Pound, E. (1913). A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetry ... n-imagiste

[26] Pound, E. (1918 ) A Retrospect. In Pavannes and Divagations, republished by Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articl ... -few-donts

[27] Reed, M. (2021, September 14). What Is Fluxus?. Getty. https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-fluxus/

[28] Taylor, S. (2009, September 10). Alison Knowles, James Tenney and the House of Dust at CalArts. California Institute of the Arts. https://blog.calarts.edu/2009/09/10/ali ... t-calarts/

[29] Wilmott, F. (2016). Yoko Ono. The Museum of Modern Art. https://www.moma.org/artists/4410






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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: ATLAST
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On the 25th of April, @atlast was chosen as the featured member by the High Court! Back in April, atlast was able to take part in National Poetry Month and this month, they’ve actually begun working on something for RP Month. I feel like they know all the nooks and crannies of the site. They’ve taken part in things ike the YWS Olympics for example, #21in21 (that sort of stuff takes lots of dedication), #22in22 (hard to believe it’s 2022 now).

And! I got the chance to do an interview with them. :)

Squills: Hello! I'm a journalist for the YWS newspaper. :) Sorry that this is a little belated, but would you still be up for an FM interview for Squills?

atlast: of course! i'd be happy to. :)

S: Awesome! To start off, what was your initial reaction to when you found out you were FM?

a: i was super shocked! i've been here on yws on and off for a really long time, and while i haven't been as active recently, i never would've expected to become fm!

S: Understandably! What would you say was the reason the Mod Squad chose you as FM? Any past events, activity-wise, maybe you've been participating in things more than usual? What do you think?

a: this one is tricky for me, because it's been hard to be as active because of school, but i've had a presence here on yws for 5-ish years, so i think it might be related to that. i've also participated in roleplays and storybooks, as well as having dabbled in reviewing and posting my own writings.

S: Very nice! Speaking of roleplays and storybooks, RP month has begun. Will you be participating in that?

a: yes! i'm super excited to join back in the fun!

S: Oh my gosh, yay! Tell me more about what Roleplay month is exactly.

a: roleplay month takes place every july and is a great chance for everyone to work on amazing stories together! there are challenges and prizes, and there are always awesome new roleplays being posted throughout the whole month.

S: That sounds really fun! Other than RPing, writing storybooks with other writers, and writing your own stories, what part of YWS do you enjoy the most?

a: i really enjoy the community. i've made lasting friendships with so many amazing people here and we've made lasting memories together that i am extremely grateful for!

S:That's amazing! So happy for you. :) Now, if someone were to come to you and get advice from you about what they should do to become FM, what would you say?

a: oh gosh, i would say to participate in the things you enjoy wholeheartedly, whether it be roleplaying, reviewing, or writing your own material, and to take the time to make connections with others on the site! collaboration is a part of the site i love, and if you want to achieve fm status it's a great way to get your name out there.

S: I would definitely agree with what you said about collaboration! Annnd it seems we have reached the end of the interview. Do you have anything else to say or any shoutouts to make?

a: i wanna send a huge shoutout to the mod squad for naming me fm, and for helping make this site a great community!!! :D

S: How thoughtful of you! And that's it now for the interview. Thanks so much for participating and your time. <3

a: Thank you so much, Lib! <3

That was a fun interview. I 100% benefited from the info about RP month. Hopefully you did too! :) Good luck if you’re participating!





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