Up by Carolyn DeCarlo and Ras. Mashramani

                Earlier this year, Carolyn DeCarlo and Ras Mashramani told you to get down. You were wet and lonely. Now it’s time to get up. Stand with your fellow literary lovers. Before you were lonely but this must end. Today you are greeted by these two internet poetry powerhouses. They’ve been waiting for you. They want your body; they want your body of literature. Show it to them. Don’t be shy. 

                Carolyn and Ras call this a ‘body’ of literature. What’s a body of literature really? To me, it is a great, lovely collection of words. In Carolyn and Ras’s case, it is sexually charged language or an actual body with sexy poems on it. Re-reading their ‘Down’ project reminded me of all the loneliness from that project, all the quiet, one-on-one sexuality. I’m glad they’ve decided to move on to larger, more participatory poetry. Before those poems were for a select few. Consider ‘Up’ akin to a poetry orgy. Get involved. You’re invited. How exciting!

                Nothing is up yet. That will change. Wait for it. Or what you could do is add to it. It is dramatically more open than ‘Down’. ‘Down’ celebrated what’s inside their minds, what their hopes and desires were (sexually at least). After that project I figure they wanted to see what goes on in the average internet-dwelling poet’s mind. Probably something really excellent, they thought. Probably a bunch of porn, they thought. 

                Don’t leave them hanging. They want to hear from you. According to their website, they already dig your body. Isn’t that nice of them? Clearly all that working out has not been for naught. Take a bow. What you can do is send them your guts to them. Email them. Or send them a link of the massive greatness you’ve been accumulating over the past several years. Perhaps you thought some of that writing was too dirty. Believe me; nothing is too dirty for this duo. Give them a little piece of yourself to them. They want to love your mind, not just your body. Your body is simply a start. 

                These two care greatly about your welfare. I’ve spoken to both of them, one in real life (Ras) and one via this great technology called ‘the phone ’ (Carolyn). Each one has nothing but care and compassion for the online literary community. Both are frequent visitors to that great online sensation known as ‘Tinychat’. And finally, they have both offered tremendous amounts of support to online readers like you. How about you support their project through the power of boost, completing the circle of boost?

‘Up’ will lift you up on the power of collective love. Embrace it. They’ll embrace you with arms wide open.