News at NPL Combine!

ALL-TIME AMERICAN WRITERS TOURNAMENT

WE’RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE that we’ve signed a distinguished author to run our official New Pop Lit Tournament Writers Combine. An eminently big name with every qualification– Count Leo Tolstoy himself! He’s vowed to put all “decadent” American writers through their paces to discover which of them are, in his estimation, the genuine article.

The Count has told us he desires that every possible candidate for the Tournament be required to go through his battery of tests– including those already selected. In our discussions with him he said something to the effect that “They need it!” Then later the Count muttered to himself, “Can’t wait to get that fat braggart with the short sentences in there!” As the Count has a thick Russian accent, we may have heard some of that wrong. We have no idea to whom he was referring.

We’re busy setting up the camp and practice facility which will be used for the Combine. Stay tuned for more news– only here, as our exclusive Tournament coverage continues.

Fun Pop Poetry #16

“The Staple of News” by Craig Kurtz

A pox upon your news reports,
the idle blather, vain retorts
of nincompoops who get paid to
spread scuttlebutt that’s all untrue;
you listen to the media,
that faux intelligentsia,
who promulgate a pack of lies
of facts rendered counterclockwise;
the publishers and the pundits,
from secret-handshake syndicates,
will move the public frame of mind
just like a clock that’s theirs to wind;
these are the people you won’t meet,
they’re in some private boardroom suite,
but you will feel their pressures on
your judgments, thou automaton;
ye dancing engines, set by type,
believing almanacs of hype,
the public is a great timepiece
that chimes to plunderbund’s caprice.

*******

(Send your fun/striking/disturbing poem to funpoppoetry@gmail.com)