Floodmark: Spotlight on Steve Roggenbuck

Electronic music and walking through the woods. The occasional dick joke. Screaming out your love for your dog inside of a port-a-potty. Shouting to the sky because it can hold your words. Existential crises solved with “two words, jackass: YOLO.” This is the poetry of Steve Roggenbuck.

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And if you don’t think all of that is poetry, then you haven’t been introduced to the world of alt lit (alternate literature) yet. Alt lit is poetry crafted for the Internet, and often found through the Internet and Internet culture. Abbreviations, acronyms, spelling errors, memes, Internet humor, anything goes.

Almost all of Steve’s poetry is distinct in its strange, playful hopefulness. To Steve, the one certainty of life, (which I’m sure we’ve all tried at some point or another to forget) death, is something that we should use as a catalyst for creativity and joy rather than avoidance or fear. He also offers advice to other writers and creators in his lively mishmash poetry videos:

He also has a knack for writing some kickass love poetry, which, as any poet knows, is a difficult task.

If you’re still struggling to see this style of writing as poetry, I invite you to expand your definition of what poetry is, and write something that is completely left field from your own writing style. Make something unexpected, silly, authentic, and don’t worry how it will be perceived by others. Maybe the way you make breakfast is poetry and you haven’t realized it yet. Maybe the anchors of Good Morning America are reading you lines from poems you haven’t written yet. Maybe there’s a poem on the sidewalk and you haven’t looked down and seen it yet. Allow the randomness of life into your poems, and maybe even shout about it if you want to, like Steve. Make something beautiful before you are dead.