Losing my religion (the death of action poetry)

[Lostwire]

The only way to travel
Amassing the said it before
Words rambling down a page
Coming & going
The outlets
Been a decade since
The change
Beginnings ended faster
Know what I'm talking about?
Much chatter in Starbucks
The sea nymph wanders
Forgotten shores once surprising
Now only memories within desire
When does the vanishing point happen?
When do you realize it's time to move on?
It all goes by in an instant
No matter how tight the clasp

[still.trucking]

I lost my virginity
on action poetry
and when I was banned
on litkicks
I was damn near suicidal for a few weeks
I saw it coming
but even so I could not imagine life after litkicks

I got that kind of compulsive character, I guess it was why I was declared unfit for military service during the south east asian war games

then when I heard or thought I heard studio eight would be shutting down or at least be under new management
I hit that existential wall again
I tried to imagine life after studio eight and I could not

I am sorry for your loss mark
I hope I do not sound dispaionate, just that my loss happened a long time ago and my grief has healed, with a little help from my friends on studio eight

someday maybe some of those litkick hipsters and hipster-rettes
will have the nerve to pick it up on GO, it is the only game in town, for true action poetry, thanks to Doreen and her techno pals

[Steve Plonk]

Yes, Lost Wire, I am dismayed by crashing of "Action Poetry".
I've been posting there for ten years...count 'em...

[Lostwire]

Poetry trumps Philosophy
Nice returns amigos....thanks
P.S. Levi says he'll see me at Nola poetry night sometime in future.....he's a good guy with a whole lot on his plate.....sometimes ya gots to move on.....I always wonder just who and how many good folks were reading our stuff....in the old daze u knew from the reaction streaming down the page....interactions that were priceless.....history now.

[mtmynd]

...old daze u knew from the reaction streaming down the page....interactions that were priceless.....history now.

i'm with ya on that, amigo! my first public writings and the joint was rockin'! L.A. created a gentle, loving monster that outgrew his ability to father it any longer. But it's akin to the age of the Beats and the Psychedelic 60's... nothing lasts longer than memories and it's not wise to live off the ever-dwindling remains less we starve ourselves dead.

[Lostwire]

U got it right Cecil....it was all along the way....& what a long strange trip it's been....

[judih]

somewhere deep inside, i hoped, still hoped that the marvel would return
a phenomenon that cackled with glee as it lived
cackles are rare
true glee rarer
but to have gleed once is better than to never have gleed at all

[the mingo]

i loved the way threads would get started & explode - free-fire zones - all those people - all that energy - more humor & amazement than rancor & o the grandstanding! i would watch the ricohets with joy & the paths a thread would cut in its passage over that landscape -
man the joint was usually rockin'! -

ain't seen anything like it since or anywhere -

smoke torn off & scattered by the wind ... whenever I see a fallen tree in the woods where the bark has rotted off exposing the trails the larvae of the woodeaters have left behind in their journeys I think of action poetry & other places on the site - at its best it was unadulterated joy - true jazz -

[mtmynd]

i've found myself going back to the archives, reliving those times and admiring the variety of participation worldwide. it's all very special and where I began my Sunday Streams and wrote my arse off for a good two years in the action vein.

but today is today and memories will remain in the background of the mind as life continues onwards, without an memory as Now is all there truly is.

[Lostwire]

Honestly the way those threads were visibly running down the page set the whole involvement mechanism in motion....no brainer.....when the new action poetry started 6 months ago this is what I had hoped for, it ended up becoming like everything else, poems posted with little interaction if any.... Boo-hoo!!!.....move on to the next phase of being an internet jam poet....at least we got some ~GO! Going on here....(thanks Doreen).....and u can always put em on the dreaded FB monster, which I have no problem with....it will be interesting to see what the future will bring......

[Arcadia]

Twenty years... wow...!!!!!! I accidentally run through Litkicks in its last or so year & it was so great fun & insightful discovery!: the opportunity to liberate old poems, the not expected opportunity to do primitive-scat in English, to don´t know exactly what was going on & to feel absolute freedom to practice joyfull reading & cooperative writing of whatever, what else could you ask for...?

http://www.litkicks.com/LitkicksHeadsFo ... 1VXAU2PJLM

What Levy wrote in the link above & what we all wrote here sounds both directly from the heart: this is great and this is now!. And of course, he has my total absolution for doing what he thinks it´s better for his life...!

[Arcadia]

Some kind of reflex R.E.M brought to my mind this album all the time while I was writing in the thread (it´s the only one in our local rock I strongly relate with the word "religión" ..., enjoy! )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1iodgt7VEw

[Doreen Peri]

I didn't even know Action Poetry still existed since 2004 when they created the blog and eliminated the spontaneous section. Oh, yeah, I guess I did... now that I think of it, in the newer blog format, you could post poetry but didn't they review it all first before it appeared? I don't remember. I haven't been there for a long time. Stopped by last year when Clay died to reply to the article Levi so kindly wrote in tribute to him.

I think 20 years is a HUGE achievement and a terrific internet presence was established and I remember the good old days when the boards looked like a trail of spontaneity. I've missed it since then but very happy they have the archives. I hope they still have them because I haven't yet spent the time to go through them and copy works I wrote off the cuff. That was a whole lot of fun!

A big congrats to Levi and his staff for operating the site for so long! I think it's a good decision to eliminate the poetry posting if it's not what they envision for the site. Moving forward to develop the site however they want is what's important. Hats off to Litkicks! The fond memories I have will last a lifetime.

Life, of course, is always about change. That's what makes it so exciting!

Action Poetry from the early 2000s....now that was just super exciting and loads of fun and it sparked more writing from me than I've ever written in my life! I couldn't stop writing and was continually inspired. I loved it there.

I guess I'll pop in on FB and congratulate Levi for his upcoming anniversary. What a huge achievement! I applaud him!

We're only entering 10 years here (only?) and it's overwhelming to me. I need tech help. I'm not a web developer like Levi is. I don't write code and even navigating the Administrative Panel on this site is often beyond my comprehension and user ability.

I'll say one more thing about the original spontaneous boards at Litkicks.... it gave me the opportunity to meet many fine writers for which I will always be grateful.

Moving forward. Congrats to Levi and his staff! 20 years is really incredible in regards to internet presence. Most sites don't last anywhere near as long and Litkicks remains a huge draw to many readers.

"Thanks for the memories" .... who sang that song? Trying to remember. My memory is going as I age.

[still.trucking]

"Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it." – "Living to Tell the Tale"

Philosophy is the " talk on a cereal box"
poetry is our life's blood

philospher kings are phooey
philosopher clowns
ask Heidegger
action poetry lives

talk about what used to be
waste another days

[Lostwire]

Moving on
With a backwards glance
They make hard copy
for posterity
It's like the disco daze
Really hard to explain
to those who weren't there
Majoring in philosophy makes
A good lawyer or even a better bartender....