Prologue to the manifesto of Erect Poetry

1st Prologue to the manifesto of Erect Poetry:

What’s Erect Poetry?
Erect poetry is upright, it rebels… Not only against system, but also against the world and man… It is not diverted by luminous humanistic speeches, it always looks for the origin of malice in the man. Erect Poetry reads darkness in two directions. It dares to dive into darkness when necessary.
It is not deterred by political correctness and similar liberal foolishnesses. It is always awake and stands up. It erects the visible analogy between the productive power of women and the reproductive power of the system to build itself again. Therefore, it avoids using a feminine language. It doesn’t underestimate the violence coming out of every part of life, it refuses lies and it is also fair to its own pathology. Erect Poetry concerns the discourse on violence and the act of violence as well. It takes its roots from a tradition stretching from Sade to Artaud. It is therefore Erect.

( 2007)

*


2nd Prologue to the manifesto of Erect Poetry:

Erect Poetry is Street Poetry.
To take part in the experiences of the street, to live new experiences on the street, to reveal the extraordinary hidden by daily reality, to sail to new situations.
The important thing is not only to stay and/or live in the street but to live with street. Poetry can not only be imprisoned into the printed paper. It should be written onto the walls, onto the electric polls, onto telephone boxes with markers. While we are strolling around the city, poems should be written automatically on the stickers and they should be put on the outer face of the city. They should be thrown from the roofs of the buildings and bus windows. Poems written on the street should go back to its origine, i.e. to the street.

Erect Poetry is against Reality,
At the beginning of the 21st century, where daily reality is transformed into an illusion reproduced by the system, Erect Poetry is against reality for the sake of the Real. It swaps reality with dream.

Erect Poetry is Anti-Oligarchic,
It doesn’t need to take confirmation from those authorities establishing their own institutions under the heavy loads of their ego, and who are giving their fetwa as this is a ‘good poem’ or this is a ‘bad poem’.

Erect Poetry is Independent,
It stays far away from a center of power-holder. It doesn’t depend on an authority. It is independent and free. It advocates the freedom of poetry and its individuality against those seigneurs who manipulate that poetry should be dependent on certain rules and traditions.

Erect Poetry is Libertarian
It never comes to terms with lumpen nationalist, conservatist, orthodox approaches which are spreading like cancer through every cell of society.

Erect Poetry Erects!

Rafet Arslan
22 June 2008


Translated from Turkish to English by: Ayse Ozkan