Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: Manifestos and Unmanifestos

Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh is a eclectic and exciting gathering of poem and prose-poem manifestos and unmanifestos that try to understand what poetry is and who or what it might be for. It is also about what the authors might want or demand from poetry, in either a general or personal way. Manifestos are often declamatory and incendiary, but I have tried to defuse polemic and overtly dictatorial rhetoric by juxtaposition, and by selecting work from a wide range of critical and poetic positions, not least that of satire and wit. I’ve previously – as any of my students will tell you – dismissed manifestos, but have more recently found them useful to react against, to incite comment and both critical and poetical reponse with. Rather than read them as a definitive and final statement, I have come to see them as an important part of poetics: a useful way to think about reasons for writing, about processes and techniques one might use to make poetry, and about existing or potential relationships with real or imaginary audiences. The book is designed to encourage and incite readers to engage with what all too often is regarded as a trivial and occasional art form. I believe, as do many of the other contributors, that poetry is far more than self-expression and heartfelt truth, it is where language is actually rooted and initiallly located; it is where thought itself comes into being. Language is wonderful and intoxicating stuff, an engaging and pliable medium with endless potential for reinvention and recreation. If the reader can find enthusiasm, passion, laughter and deep thought in this book – and then argue and engage with it – I shall be a happy editor. These manifestos and unmanifestos do not add up to a whole, but in their communcal incoherence and difference they challenge and delight.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Alan Halsey Nine Ways Of Looking At A Manifesto Andrea Moorhead Poetic Dissonance: A Manifesto Andrew Taylor A Poetics Of Absence Andy Brown Poetry Nick Piombino Second Silent Manifesto Angela Topping How To Capture A Poem Bob Hicok My Whole Life That I Know Of, I’ve Been Living: A Triptych Bob Hicok Troubadour Brian Fewster The Rules Nick Piombino Third Silent Manifesto Cliff Yates Flying: A Poetics Dave Reeves The Raw Edge Blues Dave Bircumshaw Ghost Machine Self-Assembly Kit Dave Bircumshaw His Story – One Version David Hart Instructions For A Good Time Nick Piombino Fourth Silent Manifesto Gavin Selerie 34 (From Roxy) Geoff Stevens Manifesto To Myself Guy Russell Manifesto Of The Self-Publicists Ira Lightman Manifesto (1995) Janis Butler Holm Bother Keith Hackwod If You Must Have Nouns Keith Jafrate Manifesto Nick Piombino Automatic Manifesto #5 Kyrill Potapov Deconstructionism Is Not Enough; Or A Quest To Discover Why I Stutter When A Stranger Asks Me My Name Lael Ewy Towards A Manifesto For A New Poetry Luke Kennard A Manifesto Towards Repeating The Mistakes Of The Past Nick Piombino Government Warning (Automatic Manifesto #6) Luke Kennard The War Poem Letters Mark Goodwin La Belle Dame Sans Matrix Mario Petrucci The Idea Mario Petrucci Just As I Start Michael Kerr Poetry Finds Static Michael Molyneux Our Inner Peace Is Earth’s Frontier Paul Sutton Strategies Peter Taylor Manifesto Peter Finch Technique Comes Hard Philip Terry Advice To A Young Writer Nick Piombino Automatic Manifesto #7 Robert Sheppard A Voice Without Robert Sheppard Not Another Poem Rose Flint The City Of Cherished Words Rupert Loydell The 12 Laws Of Celestial & Poetical Mechanics Rupert Loydell A Poem’s Not For People Nick Piombino The Lapsed Reader (Automatic Manifesto #8) Sandra Tappenden Dunce Embroidery Sarah Law Manifesto Scott Thurston Accreted Statement (Notes) Sheila E. Murphy Manifestoon Stephen C. Middleton (Instructions) Steve Waling Quote Mine (Selections) Nick Piombino Automatic Manifesto #9 Jackson Mac Low Unmanifest A.C. Evans The Unique Zero Manifesto Andy Brown To All You Squabbling Poets Paul Sutton To All The Useless Idiots In The Future Nathan Thompson The Certainties of Manifest Poems Acknowledgements Contributors’ Notes

About the Author :
Rupert Loydell is Senior Lecturer in English with Creative Writing at University College Falmouth, and the editor of Stride and With magazines. He is the author of many books of poetry, including A Conference of Voices and the forthcoming Boombox!, as well as several collaborative works; he also paints small abstract paintings. He lives in a creekside village in Cornwall with his family and far too many books and CDs.