Talking Art and artists - Scott Thomas Outlar

Scott Thomas Outlar
Chasing After the Essence

New literary form Spiralism by Heath Brougher

“The main purpose of Spiralism is to evoke an overall understanding of something: an aura, an essence. It differs from Impressionism in that there are no restrictions on the poems. As far as creative endeavors go, the only way to Spiral, in my opinion, is outward. Also, the majority of Spiralist poems are not to be read at a traditional pace but instead at top speed, like someone quickly reading through prose or a paragraph in a book, all the while the reader gleaning various phrases and pictures and thoughts and dreams which serve to create an overall Aura which Spirals outward and only outward. For the real Truth of the Universe [Multiverse?] cannot be better understood through words, for words are manmade. An aura or an essence is much more easily understandable because it is closer to Feeling, Emotion, the Luminiferous Ether that spins within every Consciousness.”

The paragraph quoted above is a brief excerpt taken from a manifesto that Heath Brougher sent me recently after I asked him for more information concerning the writing style/philosophy he has birthed into form called Spiralsim. The concept he is manifesting is large and all-encompassing. The weight that comes with coining any original idea in this life is heavy, but the beautifully balancing aspect of Spiralism, much like in some theories of genesis, is that there is no single spot in which the journey must begin or end. Indeed, it is creation itself, and the expansion thereof, that matters most. The Big Bang is happening everywhere all at once. There is no right or wrong answer, only the existential search for deeper meaning. Above all, Brougher is on the hunt for the ever-elusive Higher Truth. His instrument in such a pursuit is the art of poetry. He performs this craft as well, if not better, than any other contemporary writer you will come across.

Brougher’s latest book, To Burn in Torturous Algorithms, was released in January of 2018 through Weasel Press out of Manvel, Texas. Copies of this groundbreaking collection are available here directly from the publisher. Please do yourself a favor and get in on the ground floor of a literary movement that is sure to exponentially spiral outward in the years and decades ahead. My only warning before reading the book is this: be prepared to feel a gentle tug of jealousy pull at your creative spirit. You’ll likely wind up as I did, asking yourself after every poem: “Why in the name of all that is holy didn’t I think of that first!”


To close out this month’s column, I’d like to include a poem written as an ode to Brougher’s technique. My first attempt pales in comparison to his own seasoned work in this regard, but in the preface to his new book he challenges readers to take their own leap of faith into Spiralism. We all have to start somewhere in life. Why not at the edge of the earth? Selah

Reaching Beyond

…;
spiral out
beyond containment,
beyond constriction,
beyond restrictions,
beyond the veils
of illusion
that bind
our broken minds
with gilded chains
holding back
the path of progress,
the process of evolution,
the forward march
that can set
the initial spark
toward renaissance
and revolution
upon the earth;
spiral out
beyond the limitations
of what once
was thought
to exist
in this temporal masquerade
of purgatory induced
time and space;
spiral out
with Brougher
to find
that the future
has become imbibed
with a heady drunkenness
of creativity let loose
to roam
in spaces
of higher truth
beyond the earth;

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