VISION
* VOICE
CULTURE * LIFESTYLE
the magazine of performance poetry
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 Why
Metaphor? ... and why me?
By MATT PEIKEN You probably don't know me from my first book (presently stacked by the unopened boxload in a spare bedroom), the thousands of newspaper articles I've written over the past two decades (stacked by the boxload in a recycling center) or the many Pulitzer Prizes that have wrongly been awarded to other people. And I can say, with unwavering certainty, you've never seen me on stage as a performance poet. I've never written poetry beyond a few comic haikus during high school and would never think of pursuing this as a craft, creative outlet or lark. So naturally, the next logical step for my journalism career is developing and editing an online magazine -- from scratch, with few insights and fewer sources -- dedicated to performance poetry. I first clued into this art form in 2002, when I wrote a few articles about it for the St. Paul Pioneer Press when Minneapolis hosted the National Poetry Slam. Poets descended on the city from all over the country and some floored me -- their poetry was smart, searing, sincere, funny, thoughtful, inventive, hyper, hyperbolic, good, bad, ugly and beautiful. I thought about the poets' potential for mainstream appeal -- to penetrate personal and public consciousness -- if only people knew about them. Many poets have created zines, blogs and other online bows to their peers, a few have attempted more literary magazines and there are untold numbers of publications, online and on paper, dealing with traditional poetry. I haven't found a sustained, successful effort -- grounded in good journalism -- focused on spoken word and performance poetry, and nothing geared for an everyday, nationwide, non-poetry audience. I ruminated, talked to people, shaped up and refined some ideas, scrapped a few others and parked the entire idea for a while. I dusted it off last winter and, without a lead other than the name of a hotel, flew to Vancouver, B.C., in January for the Individual World Poetry Slam. I interviewed Ed Mabrey and Andrea Gibson, among many others, and today, METAPHOR is born. I want people to see this magazine as the Rolling Stone of performance poetry (that is, when Rolling Stone was relevant). You'll find lots of poetry here -- all of it in video or audio, none of it ever in text -- but METAPHOR is really about the people who create the work. You'll learn about them as more than artists, as full people with curious minds and interesting lives away from the stage. METAPHOR will always connect the poetry to a range of issues ordinary people care about -- from war to poverty to abuse to religion to love (Immigration is an undercurrent of the work done by some of the Hispanic and Latino poets you'll meet in our first People section.). As with any lifestyle and culture magazine, you'll find a lot to entertain you. Click over to Ask a Poet to meet Sonya Renee, an unbridled force of nature from Los Angeles and now (that we know of) the world's first advice poet -- and certainly the first to answer your questions in audio verse. Read the first Mouth to Mouth column from Minneapolis poet Thadra Sheridan, who debuts by dishing on truth in poetry. Soon, you'll be able to step Off/Stage with poets to work out, cook, shop, make music, eat right (or wrong), discover their favorite night spots and any of the other million things poets do when they're not writing and performing. I still write for the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- I've spent the past 20 years as a staff writer with daily newspapers -- but I see the sunset ahead. As newspapers reach lower and lower in their freefall race to the bottom with lost readership and advertising revenue, niche publications such as METAPHOR will become the norm. We're at the dawn of this, but in the years ahead, more enterprising journalists will zero in on a need and an audience, find a way to keep doing work that matters to them and let it fly. METAPHOR is my kite. METAPHOR is a nonprofit only in reality, not legally, and for the moment, we're funded by the United States Treasury Dept. and whatever scratch comes our way whenever someone clicks on a Google ad. But as handfuls of visitors turn to dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions and quadrillions, METAPHOR will take in its own advertising -- from poets and record companies with CDs to pitch to clothing companies, electronics makers and others who want to reach people like you. Dive into METAPHOR to read, watch, listen, then take a moment to let us know what you like (or don't) about the magazine's direction or point us to interesting stories that might otherwise fly below our radar. Try not to stare at our bald spots and blemishes -- nothing that can't be fixed with Rogaine, Clearasil or a comb-over -- and we're bound to have our growing pains. Check back often for new articles and features -- they'll be accumulating by the virtual boxload. |
2007 © Metaphor Media, LLC