We don't know if it was the writing, the idea, the format, not being among today's "admirable websites" (whatever that means), or a question of relevance (i.e. a novel on a poetry blog), but response to the first chapter of our wholesale script-tease, "Love is a Weakness - Chapter I", was tepid. We were about to abandon the demonstration when something happened.
"Kemla's Farewell", slapped together for the tale's finale, was released on social media. It didn't go viral but it was very well received, even by those who didn't know the back story. For this we are very grateful. Among these responders was a film producer who, if funding can be found, might want to turn the project into a movie. (The irony here is in prose intended to resuscitate poetry being resuscitated by poetry.)
Assuming this movie doesn't come about, we've thought of the "novid" (pronounced "NAW-vid"), a multimedia novel paralleled in whole or part by a video. Typically, the text would be a complete novel with embedded videos of key scenes. For example, when the key characters, Todd and Kemla, perform onstage the online reader would have the option of clicking on videos of performers depicting this.
Actors wishing to play the role of Todd can post their rendition of "Studying Savonarola" to a site like YouTube or Vimeo. Actresses vying for the role of Kemla can do the same with her departing message (below). If they start the title of their entry with the title, "Studying Savonarola" or "Kemla's Farewell", as appropriate, interested producers will have no difficulty finding them.
This modest speech is what revived interest in "Love Is A Weakness":
You showed me how to wait in Capistrano. You showed me love is a weakness, stronger than power. You showed me grace is the present tense of sorrow but what time can take from us was never ours. --------------------------------------------------------------- You showed me home is a person not a place. I watch the time collapsing in your wake. My hands retrace your touch across my face, along my breast, toward the next mistake. --------------------------------------------------------------- You said there cannot be a little candor; the truth, once trimmed, can never last. I swore I wouldn't flatter, wouldn't pander. I promised you an unregretted past. If chance is kind you'll understand this vow, this wish, a thousand happy nights from now.
Background: Having revived poetry through her performances, Kemla composes her wedding vows. Later, and with no apparent reason, she announces her departure to her friends and, especially, her lover...using the same words.
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin' I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Polito, the Poetry Foundation president, argues that poetry's reach shouldn't be measured merely by sales of books or literary journals. As it has with everything else, the Internet has democratized poetry by making it free and instantly accessible to everyone, he said. "There's clearly a paradigm shift going on," he said. "A lot of people experience poetry¹ not through printed books ... but online and through social media."
In our first post on the topic of social media we showed how this is done, combining text, graphics, video and/or sound. Before we return to that, let's look at the Who-What-Where-When-Why aspects of recreating--in both senses of the word--an audience for verse.
"Poetry," said poet and associate professor Kyle Dargan of American University in Washington, is "not the kind of thing people are going to run into on their own. It's not 'Jurassic World'."
Actually, poetry's condition is very much like "Jurassic World". Think of who is presenting verse¹ on social media: the authors, their friends and, occasionally, their editors. It is never an arms-length member of the 99% who aren't involved with the production of poetry. That is because nobody reads poetry. Yes, 7% of the population has read poetry in the last year but what percentage of that is contemporary? Given the choice between one of today's versifiers and "Homer, Rumi, Dante, Shakespeare, the Romantic poets²," what choice do you think the vast majority of those readers are making? Is it possible that fewer people are reading poetry³ than writing it? It seems so. In any event, we have "ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'."
We cannot breed dinosaurs because we don't have any stock. Similarly, there isn't a significant population online who were alive when poetry was. It's not a matter of poetry being dead; the problem is that we can barely imagine it being alive.
As in "Jurassic Park", we need to use preserved material to reanimate something which once reigned supreme. Then, like "Jurassic World", we need to use technology to process and present it.
We start with the DNA and the amber in which it is caught. These are genetically coded predispositions encased in the resin that binds all of us together. Throughout history, the two most significant of these have been Humor and Love. This isn't confined to bawdy limericks about a man from Nantucket or protestations like "Sonnet 43". If you've been online for more than 5 minutes you know that the sole purpose of all human technology endeavor is the appreciation of adorable puppies and kittens. The reason is as subtle as a double-barrel shotgun: using cuteness and cuddliness, these critters appeal to both of our main interests. (Of course, to paraphrase "Kemla's Farewell", romance in the past perfect tense is sadness. #elegy #RainbowBridge)
Now that we know what people will click on, we need to put it in a palatable format. If people were interested in using their own imaginations they'd be writing poetry, not reading it, so "palatable" means "video", with or without text. If you have Windows 7 or higher you have or can download Movie Maker, watch a short tutorial, and be ready to go. For Mac users a similar program is available or you can use IMovie.
Upload your final product to a site like YouTube or Vimeo and then post links to it on Facebook or Twitter. We assume you know better than to mention the word "poetry" in this process.
Let us know how it goes!
Coming Soon: "Love is a Weakness", Chapter 1
Footnotes:
¹ - Unless stated otherwise, "poetry" or "verse" will refer to contemporary poetry other than religious (e.g. Quranic, Biblical, etc.) verse or song lyrics.
² - i.e. the examples the article uses.
³ - i.e. other than the quid pro quo skimming of poems in the venue to which they contribute.
Remember when unknown writers sent their work "over the transom" to editors who read them with an eye toward publication? No? That is because, if those days ever existed, they were more than half a century ago. Today, the watch phrase is "No one publishes strangers." Best way to introduce yourself to an editor? Have a following that constitutes a market. Enter the Publication Paradox: you can't get a readership without publication and you can't get published without a readership.
Let's say you want to bring The Great Modern Novel into this world but you have four interrelated and insurmountable obstacles: you are too lazy--you prefer the expression "motivationally challenged"--to finish writing it, especially in light of the fact that you are too obscure to have a publisher or a readership that might attract one. Also, you're too modest and shy to promote your work or yourself, before or after publication.
The situation looks bleak, and isn't helped by knowing that this is the norm, not the exception. Nevertheless, we may have the solution to all four hurdles you face [if your writing makes the grade].
Write three chapters of your book: the first one, the last one, and the one that best advances the main plot. Post them on a free blog like this, one at a time over a few days or weeks. Post social media links to it with a nifty title and catch phrase. In theory, at least, your friends and relatives will read it and post complimentary reviews and a desire to see the completed work. Their acquaintances might do the same. Soon, strangers will be commenting. Once you have generated enough positive feedback an editor is likely to notice [with or without your assistance]. What outlet wouldn't want to produce work that already has a built-in market?¹ (See "#slam dunk" and "#fish in a barrel.")
This is an example of wholesale script-teasing. It differs from "pitching" in that it involves the public [essentially, as a ramp or lever toward publication] and uses cogent excerpts rather than synopses. It differs from retail script-teasing in that, originally at least, it doesn't involve a final product. By not withholding anything yet it tends to create less ill-will than sample chapters followed by a purchase option. It's more like crowd-sourcing than, say, shareware, movie trailers or free cheese samples at the supermarket. Best of all, it saves labor, printing and distribution costs; if the work cannot generate enthusiasm from family, friends and strangers (in that order) we needn't bother an editor with it. The Internet has served as a screener.
In the near future we will release an experimental wholesale script-tease novel entitled "Love is a Weakness", a tale about a girl who changed the world.² Watch for it here!
Footnotes:
¹ - Other than Poetry magazine, of course.
² - Note the provocative title and description. The poetry connection will be abundantly evident when you read it.
