pop lit

“Hello, My Name Is” by James Croal Jackson

NEW POETRY

(publicdomainpicturesdotnet)

Hello, my name is Hello.
Yes, it rhymes with yellow,

mellow, Jell-O. You know.
I don’t talk much, I just drink.

Put me in a taxi, call me Buddy,
take me anywhere. I don’t care.

Home is the bottom of a bottle,
the last drop a farewell kiss

before I blast into space,
my veins full of rocket fuel.

Can you turn down the heat?
My tongue’s a rag dipped in oil.

What do you say, candle?
You are my only friend

in this dark room.
My words are an old car

that won’t start. A clunk here,
a sputter there. I need a tune-up,

a shot of WD-40 for the rusty hinge
of my mouth. I walk these streets

a ghost, invisible to everyone.
Don’t pretend you know me.

You don’t know my name.

James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. His latest chapbook is A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023). Recent poems are in ITERANT, Stirring, and The Indianapolis Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)

The Pop-Lit Vision

WHERE WE’RE GOING

WHY have we been emphasizing at New Pop Lit— at the center of our plan– creating an all-new kind of short story?

This has been the project’s focus from the beginning, based on a recognition that once, briefly, from 1900 into the 1930’s, the short story was the popular American art form, epitomized first by O. Henry’s work, then by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, among others regularly writing pop short stories for Saturday Evening Post (peak weekly readership of six million) and other large-circulation publications. At the depth of the Great Depression, Fitzgerald was earning the equivalent of one million dollars per year, almost completely from his fun and/or romantic short stories. (His peak Post fee of $4,000 per story in 1929, before the stock market crash, would be like being paid $76,000 per story today.)

ANOTHER historical example we focus on is the explosive popularity of rock n’ roll 45 rpm singles– generally two to three minutes in length– from 1955 to 1970. A colorful pop vibe captured in this museum exhibit in Liverpool, UK:

The motivating idea:

EXCITEMENT!

A sense of excitement within the artwork, but also excitement created about the art form.

The short story is the ideal literary form with which to make this happen. But the form first needs to be taken to another level– and the way it’s promoted needs to be taken to another level.

-Karl Wenclas

An Excerpt from “The Front Yard War” by Wred Fright

Zarry was the head of a local nature group and hated anything that wasn’t natural. Jane wondered if he liked poison ivy since, you know, it was natural and all. 

Zarry was socially inept enough that he didn’t ask how she was in return, playing the social nicety game, so Jane said, “What can I do for you?” 

“Oh,” Zarry said, as if he had forgotten why he had stopped by himself, “It’s your grass. No Mow May is over. Those code enforcement inspectors will be all over us on Monday if we don’t cut  the grass, so I just wanted to remind you to cut it this weekend, so you don’t get a ticket. I mean  personally I don’t care if you grow a forest, but some of our neighbors are majorly uncool, man.”

“Scott’s supposed to cut it,” Jane said. 

“Scott’s back?” Zarry said, sounding heartbroken. 

Even though thinking Scott was back would lessen Zarry’s constant hitting on her, Jane still was bitter enough about the relationship’s demise that she corrected Zarry’s misconception, “No, he just agreed to cut the grass until we sold the house.” 

Zarry smiled, “Well, I can do it for you if he doesn’t.” 

A vision of Zarry having a heart attack trying to cut what now looked like a wheat field in the front yard in an effort to impress her and then not being found until Scott ran him over with the  lawnmower flashed before Jane’s eyes. “No,” Jane said, “Thank you, but he has to live up to his  responsibilities. I’m not letting him off that easily. In the meantime, if they hassle me, I can tell them  I’ve joined that Save The Soil religious movement from India and my religious beliefs prevent my grass from being cut.” 

“Huh? I’m not sure that would work, but that does sound interesting. Anyway, it’s his loss,” Zarry yelled, “Some people don’t know how good they have it.” 

Jane didn’t reply, and Zarry apparently didn’t know what to say after that, so he sneezed and  then said, “Well, if you need anything, then just let me know.” 

Jane nodded, “Thanks, Zarry.” 

She closed the window, glad not to have to yell some more about the death of her marriage for  the whole neighborhood to hear. She hadn’t even known it was No Mow May, whatever that exactly was, presumably something about not mowing in May, but she was getting increasingly irritated that Scott wasn’t cutting the grass, probably too busy doing the entire Kama Sutra with his new skank. She had thought about hiring a lawn service and sending Scott the bill, but she would have to pay for it first, and she already had enough bills to worry about. The latest was an annoying set of dental bills for a  root canal that was done badly a couple of years ago. She had thought about suing the endodontist but  being in one lawsuit, the divorce, at a time was enough. The endodontist probably hadn’t meant to screw up. Mistakes do happen. Unfortunately, this one had cost Jane a couple of grand to fix a few  years down the road when the root he missed kept getting infected and another endodontist had to go in and rework it. 

Rework. Sometimes Jane thought her whole life could use some rework. A divorce. Unemployment. Too much drinking (Jane wouldn’t yet admit she had a problem; it was just too much  of a good thing to her). Soon to be homeless when the house sold. Children who didn’t need her  anymore and didn’t understand that she needed them at the moment. It was as if a playful god had swept in and decided to destroy her old life so she could build a new one. Or maybe it was a malicious one who just liked destroying things. Well, Jane wasn’t destroyed yet. 

***

(The Front Yard War is available at Amazon, ebook or paperback; at Google; or directly from Wred Fright himself by contacting him at wredfrightATyahooDOTcom. Wred is a long-time underground writer– DIY all the way– who’s contributed several fiction features to New Pop Lit, most recently “Fast Guy Slows Down.”)

Open Territory

AN ANALYSIS

THE PART of the literary game up for grabs should be obvious, but it’s not: non-readers. Many millions of people who can read, could be reading, should be reading, but aren’t. The outfit which figures out first how to reach that crowd, that demographic, will own the future of the literary business.

A model to follow exists: the rock n’ roll music explosion which began in 1955 with the success of the 45 rpm single “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets– which dropped like a thunderbolt into an era of bland pop music sung by the likes of Patti Page and Perry Como.

At the forefront of the early rock movement were a handful of low-rent hustlers: Alan Freed in Cleveland; the Chess brothers and Chess Records in Chicago; Sam Phillips and Sun Records in Memphis; and soon enough, Berry Gordy Jr. and Motown Records in Detroit. Within a few years, they and other indie labels took half the record industry’s market share away from the monopolistic “Big Four”– and sent the cultural world into shock.

Over the next fifteen years the record industry multiplied several times over– due largely to new listeners. Popular music became the indispensable art, a part of most people’s everyday life– even part of their being, instead of existing as a distant icon on a pedestal, to be observed from afar and admired.

A key stat: in the mid-1950’s the jazz and classical music genres, sustained by the “close-listening” crowd, each held about 20% of the record market. By the time the musical revolution was over, their shares hovered closer to 1% each. They held their fan bases– but played no role in grabbing new audiences. The difference between a static and dynamic art.

THE LESSON?

The lesson is that cultural opportunity is always out there, but you need to be willing to grab it. To open the door to the new and exciting– or bust open a door if one isn’t there. Opportunity is greater with an art that’s long remained static, as in the literary field.

At New Pop Lit we’ve worked intensively at developing new models which potentially can wake up the non-reading public. That enormous untapped market. Our latest experiment is a novella which combines pop, noir, adventure, satire, topical politics and a comic book vibe: The Loud Boys. Ebook soon available at Amazon, with a print version to follow.

TWO QUESTIONS

1.) Are our literary experiments worth the attempt?

Absolutely. The upside is enormous.

2.) Am I pandering to the audience by writing “pop” style fiction?

I’m not pandering. I am that audience. I was an enthusiastic reader long before I thought about being a writer.

-Karl Wenclas

Which Hemingway?

HEMINGWAY FESTIVAL 2024

IN ANY study and celebration of Ernest Hemingway, his life and writings, the question becomes: Which period? Which of his writings? Which stories, novels, or books are most representative of the writer, the man, the myth?

Young Hemingway burst on the scene age 26 in 1925 with his first and best novel, The Sun Also Rises, the style and sensibility fully developed thanks to an arduous apprenticeship in craft and life. Sun is the ultimate travelogue and extended drinking binge, climaxed in Pamplona, Spain when bulls, bullfighters, metaphors and under-the-surface conflicts break out amid the best descriptions of being drunk ever written. Sharp clarity of memory– at the time the style was revolutionary.

Many prefer his prior minimalist in our time/In Our Time vignettes and stories. Few readers like two very bad, often-embarrassing later novels. Two other impressively titled novels– you know them– accentuated his fame.

After ups and downs including the hazards of celebrity, and multiple spouses, Ernest pulled things together with a popular novella, The Old Man and the Sea, containing some much-denied Faulkneresque Christian imagery. For many of us, the first readable-and-compelling introduction to the guy. Led to his 1954 Nobel Prize.

Reflections on the Twenties, A Moveable Feast, is good albeit not notably better than similar excursions of score-settling by Robert McAlmon and John Glassco.

FOR ME, the apex of Hemingway’s art are two Esquire magazine short stories of the 1930s. He toys with structure in both of them: with “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” more obviously. In “The Short, Happy LIfe of Francis Macomber” the seams aren’t showing, as Hemingway artfully switches viewpoints– even stepping briefly into the head of a lion– toward building to an unsurpassed climax. The best short story ever written? The most impressive, and short of a tale by little-known Richard Connell, the most exciting. Excitement with meaning and impact– we’re never completely certain of the “Why?” of what happened.

Those two stories blew me away when I first read them– and shouldn’t that be the objective of all writing?

-K.W.

(famous Yousuf Karsh photograph)

END 2024 HEMINGWAY FESTIVAL

Ad For Contemporary Artist Wannabes

by Zoé Mahfouz

Do you wish you could molest and kill women? Torture animals? Torment babies? Express your cannibalistic urges? Do you have troubles with mental institutions calling you back in? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

Discover Contemporary Art, where the nobodies can become somebody with a bunch of baloney!

You no longer need talent like Monet and paint your garden 30 times to be displayed in museums! You can now put your own dump in a can and sell it in an art auction in Milan for 300,000 dollars! 

But above all, you’ll finally have an excuse for all your sadistic impulses! 

Stopping your vehicle on the highway to take pictures of car accidents?

Blame it on the art!

Staging a hundred ways to torture babies like throwing them in the air, putting them in cages, ovens and choking them?

Blame it on the art!

Burning people’s bodies on purpose? 

Blame it on the art!

Vitriolizing photos of women icons you know you could never get in your bed? 

Blame it on the art!

Have you ever felt like cutting dead animals in half and putting them in containers filled with formaldehyde, inspired by the careers of many serial killers? Have you ever considered benefiting from a genocide by stealing ashes from Holocaust victims and turning them into a painting? Or making meatballs out of your own liposuction fat and eating them in public in a gallery? Well, you’ve knocked on the right door! With Contemporary Art, your perversions are fairly rewarded! Who cares about the antipsychotics and the mood stabilizers, when you can sell a crucifix statue immersed in your own urine at a Sotheby’s auction in London for 145,000 dollars?  

And if someone asks you the meaning behind your work, do not forget to use our usual catchphrase : “It’s the reflection of a dysfunctional society”!

Contemporary Art, turn your depravity into an ATM!

XXX

Writer’s bio : 
Writer who randomly bursts into improvised musical numbers when she is alone at home, then pretends to be emotional when the imaginary audience gives her a standing ovation. Also likes to kidnap the neighbor’s cat to make TikTok’s and complains when he throws up on her terrace. 

Zoé Mahfouz
TikTok @Lessautesdhumeurdezoe

The “Can’t Do This” People

(toy fort c/o Kid Eco)


WHO ARE the Can’t Do This People?

Answer: Today’s literary intelligentsia and their spokespersons, established literary critics. They’re like generals fighting a previous war, embedded in outmoded attitudes, waiting to be toppled by armies with new ideas and more aggressive tactics.

In short, they leave room for their predictably-positioned rigid regiments to be outflanked.

Room? Wide avenues on either side.

The self-appointed highbrows are terrified of any writing smacking of “masscult” or “midcult,” “middlebrow” (listen to your Virginia Woolf-schoolteacher lessons you studious play-the-game pupils)– or any writing which might potentially become– gasp!– popular! NO! Can’t have that.

Politics? Not.

Melodrama? OUT!

Plot? Complex structure? NO WAY!!

Which provides the simple answer to this question: How to reinvent the literary art? Be willing to try things which the designated literary experts are unwilling to try.

There they sit in their immobile fortress, unable to move. Can anyone knock the fortress down? Unlikely. But one can go around it– and leave its occupants behind, stuck in one spot.

(c/o Regal Toy Soldiers)

-KW