The Poem Between World Manifesto!

The Poem Between World Manifesto is a call for poems that revels in their Betweeness! As the World moves ever closer (because time as humans know it is linear) to oblivion, everything in it has been defined to radical poles. Every object and thought has received a name, a place, a symbol, an ideology. The new radical is the space in middle that is at neither end of a pole, but where the poles mingle among each other and are muddled. This is not to say that between poems do not take stances; they do! They take stances that recognize themselves as transitory and without absolutes, except in the fleeting moment. Because as we (the human race) move forward in technology and thinking we somehow only move towards chaos and destruction. The only poetry that makes sense than is the one that captures and exposes this entropic state’s energy.

A Between Poem’s characteristics:

1. It enjoys and plays in liminal spaces. It attempts processes that elicit the liminal and forms that invoke it.
2. A Poem Between World’s medium is language. Language is what resides between the World and the mind. It is one step of removal from the world as object. It is the Meta-World waiting to be heard or read. Because Language is the symbolic system for defining the object-ness of the world it is the perfect medium for Between Art.
3. It exists in middle of the world and attempts to hold the energy of its subject in place with language. The language must demonstrate the energy of the world. The world on the edge of oblivion has a great deal of energy and a long history for the poem to reside in, so it must find a way to jump off the page into an even more Between place.
4. Its favorite subject is anything that may be considered liminal (dream, the apocalypse, dates, time, airports, engagements, pregnancies, walks, conversation, the internet, etcetera).
5. It holds a high regard for conversation. Whether it’s putting several seemingly irrelevant “things” (objects, ideas, subjects, voices, disciplines, or ways of thinking) in conversation with each other, the meeting of voices, or only conversing with itself and its reader—The Between Poem enjoys the exchange of ideas and sentiments. It believes that the exchange and process of the conversation is more important then the results or thought that follow.
6. It is not necessarily polite conversation (Although it does like to talk about the weather). It is preferably anything but polite conversation. It looks to throw completely opposing or unrelated “things” in the ring together to box it out or just stare each other down and surprise the audience.
7. A Between Poem’s purpose is not necessarily a didactic one. The point of the conversation is for it’s own sake. It’s not interested in teaching its reader anything. It’s only interested in the exchange—the moment that the brain begins to process just before it creates reactionary or complacent thought and it’s buzzing with the energy of the poem itself.