The New Formalicious Manifesto

Announcing the glorious, bloody birth of a poetic movement: New Formalicious. Also known as The New Formalicious.

Here are the answers to the questions you're frequently asking already.

What is New Formalicious?Everything you've been waiting for. Everything you've been dreading.

How does it relate to other poetic movements?It is assembled from their greatest failures.

Who started New Formalicious and why?While John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, has often been cited as the first New Formalician, the movement as such began on a windless afternoon in the early twenty-first century, when all the lights of the city began to flicker simultaneously and a gypsy moth landed on a young poet's hand, whispering, "You must." He didn't. A movement was born.

Do New Formalicians work in traditional form?In the nude.

Do New Formalicians write free verse?Freedom is an illusion; worse, it's a Jonathan Franzen novel.

Does New Formalicious have any aesthetic principles at all?New Formalicians strive to attain the transcendent by way of the sensuous. You'll notice we didn't say “sensual.” It went without saying.

Can I join?You have always been one of us; you have only just awakened to that knowledge.

Are there parties?Are you saying you'll host?

Do you have an anthology I can check out?Look out the window. Do you see those streets? Those houses? Those people suffering the impossible heartbreak of what it is to be human every moment of every day? That's our fucking anthology. (Our friend's press was supposed to do one for us, but they folded.)