-New-Modernism Manifesto

The New-Modernism Manifesto

An Axe To The Roots Of Postmodernity

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Preamble

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We will begin by describing in brief the major literary movements leading up to the New-Modernity literary movement. A note on Neomodernism will follow, and after this, an article on the proper connection to the Poetic Genius and the correct use of literary creation. We will then look at one defining work entitled “Thoughts Penned At The Three Crones.” Following this will be found 57 theses towards a new godliness in literature, and then a few thoughts on New-Modernist writing. We will conclude with a polemic and indicting summary.

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A Timeline Of Major Literary Movements

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Antiquity includes all thought and art before visionary William Blake (1757-1827), who first understood that the Source of all life had poured Itself out (kenosis) into the cosmos, and thus had “died,” making all sentience absolutely responsible for every thought, word, and deed.

Modernity is the period from William Blake forward to circa 1970 which is defined by an acute knowledge of the fragmentation of life in all of its expressions, but laments and mourns this loss. Modernity describes a series of reforming cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature, and the applied arts which emerged in the three decades before 1914. Modernity is a trend of thought affirming the power of sentient community to create, improve, and reshape its environment through the maintenance of tradition and the taking of cues directly from antiquity. The essence of Modernity is both progressive and optimistic, and includes the sub-movement of Romanticism. Key writers include W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and Friedrich Nietzsche. (Sadly, Modernity with its focus on developing a solid communal tradition helped to inadvertently create Nazism, Fascism, Capitalism, and Bolshevism, four false ideologies focused on will to power and not will to sentient rights, these two paradigms being mutually exclusive.)

Beat Movement Begun in the decade just after WWII, this was an interim movement between Modernity and Postmodernity. Here societal disillusion was pointed out in a playful way and the “Me” generation was begun, thus effectively undermining the Modernist idea of community and, though perhaps inadvertently, making way for the nihilism of Postmodernity, where no one and nothing matters. The Beat Generation paved the way for the multi-faceted Freak Movement, aka the Hippie Movement, which was a final attempt to hold onto the more positive of Modernist ideals before Postmodern nihilism took sway. Key writers include Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, and Allen Ginsberg.

Postmodernity is roughly the period ca. 1970 forward to the first decade of the Third Millennium CE which accepts the fragmentation of life while refusing to mourn the loss of a “Golden Age.” The decision is to rather revel in the confusion and meaninglessness of life and to promote a complete destruction of all grand schemes, meta-narratives, and master plans (such as Marxism, Orthodox Christianity, etc.) while making light of all institutions and belief systems, regardless of communal importance. Postmodern writing is primarily the result of the black magic used by Deconstructionists in their analyzing of sentence syntax to allegedly prove that writing carries no real meaning, and by extension communication, and thus life, has no meaning. Postmodern writing came about, via the Beat Movement, as a critique of the universal schemes pushed by some Modernist writers, but it should not stand alone as its own movement because the nihilistic language used to effectively critique Modernist designs acts on its own as a medium for alienation and the destruction of place-based, and thus heart-based, writing. Key writers include Kathy Acker, Thomas Pynchon, and Aimee Bender. [A group labeling themselves 'Stuckists' in 1999, and following a 'Remodernist' ethos with its manifesto in 2000, called for a 'new spirituality in the arts', but were within the decade of their forming discovered to be an assembly seemingly aligned with and supporting the Postmodernity they decry in their manifesto. New-Modernism is set apart from this set by its deletion of the cynicism accompanying them.]

New-Modernity began as a literary movement in 2007 CE. Important ideas are the reminding of, maintaining, and nurturing of the “Golden Age” narrative while showing the nihilism and destruction of Postmodern thought and praxis. This movement is the continuation of Modernism. New-Modernism asserts that Postmodernism is only a tool designed to critique Modernist writing, and cannot stand alone as its own form without causing nihilism. Key writers include George Mackay Brown and Ray Bradbury.

The focus of New-Modernism is to tip the literary scales in favor of community, and thus of tradition and the value of all life and sentience. New-Modernism is influenced by ideas similar to those of Neomodernist philosophers Jürgen Habermas, Agnes Heller, Carlos Escudé, and Victor Grauer. Specifically informing New-Modernism are writers including William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Ray Bradbury, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Wilfred Owen, Herman Hesse, Kahlil Gibran, John H. Heiser, Oswald Chambers, Mircea Eliade, Thomas J. J. Altizer, Jenny Erpenbeck, George Mackay Brown, Skadi meic Beorh, and the musical groups Midnight Oil, The Doors, Dead Can Dance, and Pink Floyd, all who routinely employ Modernist themes in their works.

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A Note On Neomodernism

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Neomodernism states that universalism and critical thinking are the two essential elements of human rights, and that human rights create a superiority of some cultures over others; that is, that equality (created by attention to community and thus to purpose in life) and relativism (created by attention to a philosophy of meaningless) are “mutually contradictory.”

Carlos Escudé posits that if all cultures were morally equivalent, then all people would not be endowed with the same human rights, because some cultures would still award some men more rights than are allotted to other men and women. Hence, if all men and women were endowed with the same human rights, then all cultures would still not be morally equivalent, because cultures acknowledging that ‘all men are created equal’ and putting this into practice would be superior, in terms of their civil ethics, to those that would not. The Neomodern era is characterized by this inevitable conflict between Postmodern relativism (allowing inequality because, after all, life is meaningless anyway) and the assumptions of Modernity about the essential equality of human beings (because community, and so the people of the community, is of ultimate importance). Concomitantly, the Neomodern world-system is characterized by these two paradigms, one related to an ethics of human rights and the other to a logic of power.

In 1982, Victor Grauer attacked Postmodernism, calling it “the cult of the new,” and proposed that there had arisen a “neo-modern” movement in the arts which is based on deep formal rigor, rather than on “the explosion of pluralism.” His argument is that Postmodernism is exclusively a negative attack on Modernism, and has no future separate from Modernism proper, a point of view which is held by many scholars of Modernism, and by New-Modernists.

Neomodernist philosopher Agnes Heller levels her critique of Postmodernism at journalism, where she questions the lack of the question how, and localism, where she questions the lack of perennial and universal patterns occurring across time and location. She also questions the unverified “truths” of Postmodernism, stating that their lack of validation causes the movement to proceed by fad and hierarchy.

Fiery opponent of Jacques Derrida and Postmodern Deconstructionist thought, Jürgen Habermas, who defines himself as a methodical atheist, stunned his admirers in 2004 by proclaiming that “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is Postmodern chatter.” He further maintains that “recognizing our Judaeo-Christian roots more clearly not only does not impair intercultural understanding, it is what makes it possible.” According to Habermas, we continue to nourish ourselves from this source. New-Modernists admire the seers among the Judeo-Christian tradition, and other traditions, who have striven against the religious institutions of their own times. New-Modernists adhere, though, to the mandate of William Blake concerning religion, as follows, from The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell:

“Some will say: ‘Is not God alone the Prolific?’ I answer: ‘God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.’

These two classes of men are always upon earth, & they should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy existence.

Religion is an endeavor to reconcile the two.

Note: Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to separate them, as in the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says I came not to send Peace but a Sword.”

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Following is detailed the work of the poetic writer in New-Modernity, here calling her the mythopoet, for she not only writes poetically, a hallmark of the New-Modernist, but draws deeply upon myth and tradition as did her direct antecedents the Modernists.

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The Poetic Genius In Mythopoïetic Creation:

A New Defense Of A Work Of Long Continuance

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The mythopoet nurtures a fierce distrust of all socio-political assertions, and this protective measure is principal for the writer who has not only seen the isolation of her own beliefs but watches the suppression of ancient wisdom at the hands of selfish dogma developed as societal fear tactic designed to maintain control of a fragile paradigm which is always threatened by harmony and the power of harmony. Babylon lies everywhere that harmony asserts itself. In churches as well as in governments; in universities and well as in the local grange, the insidious creeping of control over the people may be found.

Mythopoïesis carries a three-fold purpose:

: to provide a constructive thesis to use as a guideline for abundant living full of creative and godly imagination;

: to supply a synthesis and maintenance of all comparative world philosophies as they relate to the Poetic Genius;

: and to impart a destructive antithesis well-equipped to pull down insufficient and malnutritioned aspects of life which have fallen sway to sinister paradigms.

The mythopoet imposes her vision upon a place, refusing to accept a paradigm from it. She weaves a variegated tapestry, penning madly at times of anything and everything. As with any proven artisan, she has her constant; her underlying theme which often surprisingly bleeds through even her most bizarre and seemingly disassociated works.

The creative imagination of the mythopoet is a harmony-seeking and harmony-intensifying talent which creates a true vision of reality. The mythopoet has taken it upon herself to write, and re-write, history if necessary–keeping in mind the ancient mandate that the seanachie, or lore-keeper, should never change the most important facts that stand as the fabric of the narrative, which is hoped to be an unamendable one, and therefore representative of some aspect of life-engendering love. Any re-writing the mythopoet does is to be done in the spirit of re-clarification where the core truths have been tampered with.

It is the very Poetic Genius who gives the mythopoet the magical, conscious, far-reaching and seeing mind that is needed to set the record straight and to pull down from the eternal trans-consciousness what may at first be seen as new lore and undocumented legend, but is later understood as valid primeval symbolism and celebrated archaic vision kept hidden, and thought lost.

Mythopoïesis has the distinct ability to raise history to a different power, and as a body of work is read and re-read, the student moves exponentially to higher and higher ground. The mythopoet actually writes places into existence, and destroys soured or profaned places that prove themselves unnecessary to the full picture. Further, the mythopoet reveals her connection to the Creative Force by bringing into existence places previously nonexistent.

The linear historian skews what happened in order to propagate the narrative of the dominant paradigm, no matter how profane; the mythopoet writes into existence what should have happened, and so it does happen on some other and far more important plane of being. Therefore, mythopoïesis is a more philosophical and serious activity than historical writing.

The mythopoet who causes loss of face is generally not desired as a comrade, but is persecuted if not by governments then by equally formidable critics. Notwithstanding, she feels completely secure in the arms of the ancients who have gone before her. In this place of rest she finds both her peace and her voice as she humbly and powerfully seeks the path of harmony each moment of her life. As the Ancient of Days walks with her in the cool of the day, she both stands in awe of Its presence and realizes her oneness, truly never lost, with this selfsame presence. The mythopoet is called to magnanimous duty, and to shirk this calling is to destroy communion with the Poetic Genius. [Skadi meic Beorh]

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Thoughts Penned At The Three Crones

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It has been said, and perhaps by those not so wise, that the worst time to live in any land is in the interim between the brutality of its most recent conquerors and the warm day of its healing. Yet, even the brutal years are adopted by mythology, and are softened and given fame in exchange for their infamy. What is the secret here; the core of why we admire the ruthless pirate; the unforgiving marauder? It can only be that we love the warriors’ heart in the man, regardless of his deeds. We love the aggressive defiance of laws binding us to the ground; killing our souls; and so when we see someone stand to decry, we easily forget the circumstances and look to the spirit of freedom exampled.

Perhaps there was never a Classical time of serenity, save in the heart of the poet–that smooth, quick, incisive hand of the mythologian attuned to love, dedicated to love, discipled by love. Old, dark paths are to be avoided in every land–yet, there are some, and maybe many, who are drawn to the lands healed and glossy with the hidden fires of majesty. Unless a place regains its majesty, the poet may hope, the seer may dream, but the land will weep joyless, and remember its sorrow, and dream sad and frightening dreams of broken promises, Bauhaus isolation and structural games of nihilistic power not unlike that hideous strength which has given substance to all that crumbles, all that fails in the vision of humanity. Ah! What is needed? The heart of the child, the sight of the child, the vision of the child. And what may bring this sacred heart back if it has been bruised, torn, made cold? Though the path may indeed be opened in the breast, and the heart revived and made to love again, the cut must be made by that which is greater than us all. You see, we are all, every one, at the mercy of Love.

At dusk, and especially in the autumnal months when the world quietens early for the chill in the air and many hearts find themselves drawn to the hearths of their ancestors to hear what stories may be heard, and to learn them to tell in future years, we are all beckoned. We are beckoned by cloakéd ones wearing spirits of fire which we cannot see, but certainly feel. They tell us that the loud minority of to-day has rejected us, but that we should not mourn nor be dejected for it. We are, they tell, the bringers of the Golden Age to thirsting voices murmuring now, lost in the solitude and loneliness of accusatory, satanic Postmodernity. [Skadi meic Beorh]

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57 Theses Towards a New Pragmatism in Literature

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Through the course of the 20th century Modernism has progressively lost its way, until finally toppling into the pit of Postmodern balderdash. At this appropriate time, the New-Modernists, the first Remodernist all-literary group, announce the birth of New-Modernism. The New-Modernism objective is to bring about the death of Postmodernism and to instigate a pragmatic renaissance in literature and society. Work based on emptiness and nihilism, which was seen as appropriate under the old paradigm, will perish under the new one, which is Modernism continued from its auspicious stance previous to World War II and taking us back at least to Golgothic visionary William Blake, if not to the Event itself described by the original Johannine community.

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1. The fatal flaw of Postmodern thought is the creation of a structureless society where post-apocalypticism is celebrated and anything is allowable because all is relative, therefore no thought, word, or deed matters. The matrix for nihilism (the ideology which promotes “survival of the fittest” as opposed to community) is made of such caustic praxis; and though this vicious template makes it difficult for any grand scheme or master plan to take root and flourish (Nazism, Capitalism, Fascism, Religious Fundamentalism), it also leaves its inhabitants longing for meaning in life.

2. New-Modernism takes the original principles of Modernism and reapplies them, highlighting vision, aware sentience, and communal solidarity as opposed to deconstruction, relativism, and nihilism.

3. New-Modernism is inclusive rather than exclusive and welcomes writers, editors, publishers, critics, and agents who endeavor to know themselves and find themselves through literary processes which strive to connect and include, rather than to alienate and exclude.

4. New-Modernism upholds the vision of the founders of Modernism and respects their bravery and integrity in facing and depicting the travails of the human soul through a new literature that was no longer subservient to a paradigmatic dogma and which sought to give voice to the breadth of sentience.

5. New-Modernism rejects and replaces Postmodernism because of its failure to address vital questions concerning sentience and transcendence.

6. New-Modernism embodies depth and meaning and brings to an end an age of impoverishment promulgated by false ideologies such as patriotism, science as dogma, rugged individualism, nihilism, classism, consumerism, religion, capitalistic imperialism, globalism, multinationalism, and free trade.

7. We do not need more monotonous, mind-numbing, dense destruction of convention as found with Deconstructionists and other nihilists. What we need is not new, but enduring. We need a literature which integrates body and mind as the one unit it actually is.

8. We need a literature which recognizes the enduring and underlying principles which have sustained wisdom and insight throughout the history of sentience. The sharing and keeping of life-engendering knowledge is the proper function of tradition.

9. Modernism never fulfilled its true potential. It is pointless to set oneself up as ‘post’ of any idea which has not yet ‘been.’ New-Modernism is the rebirth of literature; the resurrection of Modernism minus its attachment to grand schemes of change and, often, a willingness toward bloody revolution to enforce these changes–for to take life one must be willing to consume that life if he/she will follow the natural pattern set up for us by the predatorial cosmos.

10. Pragmatism is the defining focus of sentience. The primary principle of pragmatic praxis is a declaration of intent to face the truth. Truth is defined as an unamendable statement and intent of knowledge. Truth is as truth does.

11. We must address our projections, the beautiful and the monstrous, our clear visions as well as our delusions, in order to know ourselves and thereby our true relationship with others.

12. Good writing is about addressing the demon and befriending the feral, not about disgorging ourselves and enjoying the disgorging.

13. Pragmatic writing is not ‘religious’ or ’spiritual’ writing. The quest of sentience is to understand itself and find its meaning through the clarity and integrity of its visionaries.

14. The making of true art is the desire of sentience to communicate with itself, with nature of which it is a part, with its comrades, and with its ‘God.’ Writing which fails to address these issues is not good writing.

15. Technique is dictated by the vision of the writer, and only necessary to the extent to which it is balanced with this vision. In the masterpiece by T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, free verse is employed alongside form verse, yet the finished work is flawless in its vision.

16. The New-Modernist work is to bring God back into art, but not as God was before with the ‘religious’ and ’spiritually’ minded. It is a new godliness that we need, and this is found through discipline and continual attention to our full potential as sentience beings. New-Modernism is not a religion, nor is it spirituality. It is rather an awareness that we are God. Therefore, be God.

17. Visionary literature does not mean only the literature of great leaders. Great literature is writing which touches the soul of both the reader and writer.

18. Pragmatic literature looks like everything else because pragmatism includes all life and sentience. Pragmatism is the only impetus in the New-Modernist vision, meaning that if the intent is not pragmatic at its source, the result will be too ephemeral and ’spiritual’ to have any real meaning in the lives of those influenced by the writing.

19. Why do we need a new movement in literature? Because connecting in a meaningful way is what makes people enthusiastic about life. Unity and communion is what brings us together in knowing that it is us who creates and guides our own destiny.

20. Postmodern writing is cowardly and unchallenging because hopelessness is tedious, not notable.

21. The main problem with Postmodern writing is that writing, like the other arts, can only ever be a reflection of an aspect of the character of the artist. If the artist is not a visionary, then his/her art will not add to the vision of community.

22. Postmodern writing is the opposite of visionary work, and must be discarded. William Blake teaches us that there are two kinds of people living on Earth: Existing Beings and Men, and that these should be enemies. The New-Modernist writer is either an Existing Being or has leanings in that direction and will soon make the necessary Dionysian leap of faith.

23. The Postmodern writer is not an outsider; is not rejected by Today, as W. B. Yeats so eloquently puts it in his masterpiece The Celtic Twilight. The true outsider is the forgotten visionary, because Today continually rejects him/her, and so he/she is forced to draw upon antiquity for sustenance and a continued communal vision. Make the myths; draw them out.

24. To develop to full potential as a writer one must become an Existing Being.

25. True writing is the tearing asunder of all societal restraints, all of which are born in a black magic almost too ancient to fathom.

26. Following the heart causes a person to become an outsider, but only outsiders develop ideas which make positive changes in society.

27. A true writer never conceives of him/herself as a writer while actually writing, but as a chronicler or communicator. The best writing is written by unaffected people. This goes especially for those who call themselves poets.

28. Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (James Joyce) were not penned to make all other forms of writing redundant. These books were additions to Modernism and thus to the cannon of great literature, not affronts.

29. Great writing continues the tradition of sentient comradeship. Great writing never attacks the core of meaning and purpose in life, thus making communication a worthless tool.

30. Great communicators are the real pillars of their communities.

31. What is needed is the challenge of being sentient, being alive.

32. What makes great writing great? The first place of meaning is an awareness, no matter how small, of our connection to the Primal Source; the Poetic Genius. The second place of meaning is writing to chronicle and communicate. Writing has almost completely taken the place of the oral tale, its antecedent. This being so, what is written should carry the verve and enthusiasm of our seanachies, or lore-keepers.

33. Great writing illuminates the reader and gives him/her a sense of focus, purpose, and community. Great writing carries the ability to change the world through its magic.

34. God is demon, angel, imp, faery, shadow, sunlight, rain. As a writer, be these, and you will communicate purpose to your reader, and with that purpose comes an ineffable joy.

35. The writer must be bold and empathic. He/She must have communion with tradition, or at least try to understand his/her lack of it. The work of the writer is to consider his/her reader, but this is done by first considering his/her own needs and understandings while writing.

36. Communication is here to serve Life, and not the opposite.

37. Why should the poet not be a student of his own work as well as his reader? The Poetic Genius rules our work. We are Its instruments.

38. A true hunter gives him/herself as prey.

39. If any work is not powerful, whether it be a study of transgression or a revelation of transcendence, it is not worth our time; for it is malevolent. What is the standard for works worth our time? The standard seems to be whether the pieces are written to obscure the truths of the harmonious spirit of life, or reveal them. Discernment is required here, and the standard then used is love. Where there is back-biting, negative criticism, and nihilism, there is not the spirit, there is only worthlessness.

40. Poetry is the breaking down of all life; destruction; the death of language. Written language allows us to put into pictures the sounds we make which are aural symbols, sigils, or descriptions of the things we know, remember, are being taught. Written language is a secondary communication, as is oral language.

41. Primary communication is silence; for upon silence rides all sound.

42. Poetry is the paragon of all writing.

43. Poetry is the masterful manipulation of the mind; the art of meter and rhyme and controlled chaos.

44. Poetic writing is at first spewn like blood from a God-inflicted gash in the throat. It is then caught and utilized as a sort of communion; a mysterious food for the starving soul.

45. Words honed like steel in the fires of Harmony are sempiternal and divine. The poet is at first a laborer, given to much sweat and travail with little result, unless he is from time to time given suspiration of a Muse, whose hands are most often held back by the spirit of life that the writer may find his own voice, his own talent, his own godliness in his skill. No writing worth anything comes easy, and rarely in a first or second draft.

46. Poetry is the economic use of languages in the vain attempt to describe the ineffable.

47. A poetaster can be formed into a great poet, but a genius untrained is drunk with his own potential.

48. To study language is to study unity. To study unity is to study the missing link in the many cultures of the world. There was a time when all worshipped God in spirit and in truth. That time is gone, but there are those of us who still love the spirit of life.

49. Religions serve false gods. Christendom is one of these religions, serving a god of bloodshed and war and hatred. Jesus came to reintroduce us to the spirit of life, and to divide Existing Beings from Men.

50. In one great respect, to write is to lessen communication; to rape Silence of its terrible importance to our communion with the spirit. Writing discloses aspects of the Abyss which many desire not to see, for their eyes are not cleansed, and so burn when seeing. The most recalcitrant go blind. But the doors of perception can be cleansed, and when this occurs, infinity can be seen, and dwelt in.

51. The true poet does not write for his sake or even for the sake of poetry, but for the sake of remembering the place of sentience, which is more often than not found at a place-name, ‘real’ or imagined-unto-reality. Great writing makes divine the place of praxis.

52. The literature of Love, found in many places, proves without chance of challenge that at one time sentience was united as one; proves that there is a strain of righteous men and women who would rather lay down their lives than not speak the loving truths of harmony in every instance, in every way.

53. Every word and communicative action is a catachresis, or a violent and abusive use of a word to name or give form to something which has no name (nature) nor form other than Formless. This “something” is Eternal Silence translated by seers of all paths as the Eternal Sound, the Eternal Reasoning, or the Poetic Genius.

54. Language, in any form, is contrived and does nothing compared to the creative and preserving and destructive forces of silence. Yet, we need language as a tool. Jesus Himself used it.

55. The silence of the spirit is a shocking fire suddenly ablaze in a darkened room.

56. The internal dialogue must be stopped if the eternal silence is to be experienced. This is done through prayer, fasting, meditative mind/body monism, study of righteousness, application of godliness in all aspects and interests, and intercessory living among others.

57. The importance of literature is not what you make out of it, but what it makes out of you. What is everlasting in literature is that thing that touches the hearts of people everywhere: that unwordable feeling of hope; of knowing that all is well.

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Thoughts On New-Modernist Writing

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a. Very often what we read about we internalize and become part of, and so we can say we know this sometimes as well as we know actual experience, which we should make every effort to write of. Write what you know about.

b. Write your work over and again. Experiment with word choice, meter, rhythm, rhyme and any other thing you can think of. Few masters publish the first draft, and when they do, they are bowing at the feet of Dionysus while doing it. Rewrite.

c. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, intuiting, and the rest. These will bring new dimensions to your work.

d. Every writer has three times as many lesser pieces as he or she has excellent ones. For your own benefit as well as your readers, share only the latter. Only publish your very best work.

e. Emotive, prophetic language is a part of poetic history, but only the master can handle such diatribe effectively. Wait until you are a master to tear up the temple. The master is characterized by the gestalt created of the four qualities of cunning, pitilessness, kindness and patience. Use integrity.

f. Power, Beauty and Knowledge make up the trident of the true storyteller. These combined are wisdom. Seek Wisdom.

g. Social injustice is the best fuel for nationalism and even jingoism; but these two results of the age-old problem make the poet blinkered and keep his or her work from carrying the universal message of love, the only real message anyone has. Know your limitations, but fight them nonetheless.

h. You are what you think. You will produce from your environment, every time, no exceptions. If you want beautiful writing, see beautiful things, read beautiful things, let yourself experience beauty. Above all, listen closely, and read.

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Summary

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On inspection, Postmodern writing carries the problem of being bankrupt of wisdom. This is especially true of Postmodern ‘free verse’ poetry, which is wearisome.

Despite the benefit of centuries of well-crafted literature, the Postmodern writer still manages to be less developed, less contemporary, and less vital than his/her predecessors. Postmodernity is a weird religion of nihilism married to popular vogue, and religion is the opposite of vision and seership.

The Postmodern recourse to a stance of invulnerability halts feeling. If one does not experience life more keenly after reading a piece of writing, then that writing is a lamentable failure. Sometimes a savage truth in the writing leads the reader to feel dread, or even horror. This is when complacency is being challenged by knowledge. This is where we find great writing.

The principles of beauty, knowledge, and power upon which Modernism was founded are sure, but the conclusions which have now been reached from a Postmodern deconstruction of them are incongruous with applied wisdom. We address this lack of meaning, so that a coherent literature can be achieved and this imbalance redressed.

There will be a revival in literature, because there is nowhere else for literature to move and remain alive. The New-Modernism mandate is to initiate that resurrection now, and to support those who have already begun to make a change toward universal community among Existing Beings.

Signed,

Skadi meic Beorh

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Autumnal Equinox 2007