On December 31, 2002, Newspoetry.com ceased publication. Although the site still exists as a record of the enormous creativity of those who were proud to call themselves newspoets, it no longer features a daily poem inspired by the news of the day. The following is Newton Bigelow's lament for the end of this unique and important project, as well as his expression of hope for the future of newspoetry as a creative form.

28 December 2002

Dateline Madrid --

At the end of the last palindromic year this reporter expects to see in his lifetime, there is something in the air which smells of transition. Things are changing, as they inevitably do. One could wax poetic about the cycle of destruction and creation, the great wheel of life coming around to its end and beginning again.

One could wax poetic. And so one shall.

Endings: Newspoetry.com, the only website dedicated to daily rants, rhapsodies, and ridicule inspired by the news of the day, is calling it quits. Joe Futrelle, the stalwart Editor-within-Chief has decided, quite reasonably, to devote his energies to other pursuits. In this reporter's opinion, Newspoetry.com has been an entirely unique enterprise, an open forum with little or no exclusionary editorial policy, which has still managed to present a cohesive voice that declares, "We will turn our outrage into art."

Yes.

Newspoetry.com has been my home-away-from-home for nearly two years now. For an expatriate, that is no small thing. The cynicism and disgust which drove me to Spain still holds me here. I left when there was a Bush in office, and I'm damned if I'll come back while his misbegotten offspring occupies the White House. I still get uncontrollable attacks of bile every time I see that smug, arrogant face on the front page of El Mundo. Having said that, I have found that newspoets are an effective tonic when the attacks are at their worst.

So.

Newspoetry is dead, they say. Long live Newspoetry! It is my hope and belief that newspoets will continue to commit literature in the face of ignorance. For myself, I have found that writing is a hard addiction to kick. My dispatches from Madrid will continue, if not here than elsewhere on the internet. I encourage all newspoets to go and do likewise. Make your voice heard. Tyranny loves nothing better than a silent populace. As a better poet than I once said, "If you don't stand for something, you'll go for anything."

Beginnings: Over the last several months, a mysterious writer named Kola Boof has appeared as an elusive presence on the internet. She is (or perhaps isn't) a Sudanese national, a `womanist' poet, an opponent of modern-day slavery, and the survivor of at least one gun battle. Her writing celebrates the beauty and strength of African women, and condemns organized religion as man-centered and destructive.

I like her.

Why? She's an expatriate, for one thing, and we ex-pats have to stick together. Also, despite her growing fame on the web, she's notoriously difficult to contact in person. I understand the compulsion to speak one's mind, offset by the deep desire to preserve one's privacy. Plus, the precise details of her life are oddly difficult to corroborate. It's almost as if she was partly fictional. I can identify with that as well.

What next?

I'm envisioning an epidemic of writers like this, whose public lives are part of their body of work. Kola Boof has shown that it can be done, and done well, with little more than word-of-mouth. One of the momentous things about the web is that it gives us control over our own personas. Feel shy about stating your opinions? Become someone who isn't!

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