"The sickness of modern poetry is the sickness of isolation from any living audience. There is no healthy literature that does not grow out of naive, folk, and 'primitive' art. It is notable that every art in the twentieth century except poetry has drawn richly from jazz, the movies, advertising, the comic strip, commercial design, and even radio and TV. Poetry is somehow deprived of its contact with contemporary art on the popular and even commercial levels. . . ."
On a mountain in Alabama, the first Outsider Writer meetup took place.
It was the first week of August and it was hot and humid.Not quite the best conditions for sitting on top of a mountain in Guntersville, Alabama, drinking Coors Light and shooting the shit.But a tree provided shade and the horse pasture seemed to stretch limitlessly.And everything felt just fine.
Through the last (X) years I have compiled, collected and filed. I have learned (from other writers), while avoiding all intellectual commitment in my 9 to 5 working life: to the extent of doing nothing more taxing than counting ball bearings and packaging nuts and bolts -- all so I had enough mental and emotional energy left over to pursue my own course.
I have gotten innumerable writing projects underway and have, in fact, carried enough of them to completion to be satisfied.
I have had countless ideas, duly set down in personal journals. I have read classics including F.S. Fitzgerald, Cheever, the Beats, etc., etc., as well as a bunch of postmodernists, many of whom I found unsatisfying. Needless to say I have read a lot of outsiders like our own McGinnis, Koweski and Drehmer, who I have found just great, thanks.
The following piece comes from an anonymous group of writers who believe their "battle cry for the counterculture" should belong to all who consider themselves outsiders. If you find their message to be inline with your own feelings about corporate influence over the lit world you might disseminate their Manifesto via emails, bulletins and message boards. You might even print it and post it in your town. After all, if you're a writer claiming authorship you should be claiming ownership as well. Nuff said. Pass it on. JDF
Manifesto
The counterculture is shattered. A movement that once screamed against the torpor of our time-fettered society is in shards, each fragment reflecting only the petty needs of its adherents. Whether an acolyte of one of the kaleidoscope of self-obsessed musical and literary subcultures, an obsessive over some futile political cause or worse a soul lost to those games and worlds existing only in the circuits of counting machines, we are the heirs of those with grander visions, and their shades regard us with scorn...
From my point of observation (outside), promoting a writer can be a sort of easy task of having some bumper stickers printed up, sending out press releases, booking a few readings, doing a few radio and podcast interviews and sending the writer out to meet his public. (It's a simplification, I know.) You'll get all that and more if you're lucky enough to have a publisher that will give you a PR person. But as usual it's only the bigger names that get that treatment and often the midlist author is like the toddler that is taught how to swim by being thrown into the pool.
Click below to learn more about OW's first book and the winner of the Jack Micheline Memorial Award.
About OW!
Outsider Writers have been distributing chapbooks in dark subterranean caverns for too long. The corporate presses and literary institutions have no vision. The media is irrelevant. It's time to rise into the sun!
Our Goal: Unite the write! We will join forces where we are strong, eliminate duplication of effort where we are weak and put the power and authority over literature back into the hands of the only legitimate owners: the authors and the readers.
Sign our Petition!
Tell Amazon you'd like to see a category for Independent writers on their site!Sign our petition.
The Naked Opinion 
