Punkpoetry.com is launching on WordPress and online to give a voice, and a location, to anyone who would like to publish their ‘punk poetry’. It’s not a fancy online publishing forum as yet – but an embryonic online cafe where the like-minded writers of a certain kind of verse can make their presence felt.

What is punk poetry?

There is no adequate definition for ‘Punk Poetry’, and I’m not inclined to be pedantic in applying one. However, we view it as poetry with a certain punk aesthetic – in other words, poetry that is steeped in the literature of rebellion, or poetry that questions prevailing norms and assumptions. My preference is for poetry that offers alternative social perspectives, that provides astute social commentary, poetry that is intelligent, and above all poetry that does not pander to the cliques that currently publish poetry.

Performance poetry and musical poetry welcome

In particular we welcome entries or recorded poetry, and music with a strong lyrical content. At this point, we at punkpoetry.com (there’s only me at present but perhaps one day there will be a ‘we’) will be accepting MP3s as well ordinary text submissions. Placing them on our site up to our (my) discretion – you will receive complete credit for everything you submit, and where possible links to any source online that you would like to link to.

This project is an effort by me to provide a location on the internet where this kind of work can have a home. It is a work in progress – there is no payment for submissions accepted, and no restrictions on what you do with your submissions elsewhere. If you wish to withdraw submissions, that’s no problem either – simply let me know. We will take this little project one step at a time. So feel free to submit work you would like represented. Please be patient as this evolves.

We won’t be accepting prose writing at this point – only performance based work that includes recitations or music (providing it fits our preconceptions of the genre), and straight poetry formats.

Selected work will be published on WordPress from this site, and also included on the site’s pages, where deemed appropriate.

Site owner/editor

Ron Lawrence Anderson