NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: CONSERVATIVE POETRY & PROSE

He saw the townlands And learned the minds of many distant men And weathered many bitter nights and days In his deep heart at sea, while he fought only To save his life, to bring his shipmates home. —Book I, The Odyssey cover Purchase Jollyroger.com: Navigating An American Renaissance

Ahoy there mates! Contained herein are the captain’s logs of The Jolly Roger, flagship of Classicals & jollyroger.com LLC. The words were set down during a five year voyage of fantastic romance, peril, and adventure, as the Good Ship sailed the WWW on towards an American Renaissance. Beyond the fogs of cynicism we’ve navigated, and at the breaking edge of postmodern liberalism, we’ve sighted the dawning of a classical conservative revival that shall be known by the rising generation, as well as by all who count themselves members of the community of eternal souls.

It’s good to be back on shore for the moment, as we always shall be whenever a fellow seafarer reads this introduction. Perhaps ye’ll meet us out tonight at The Jolly Roger Piano & Poetry Pub or our Great Books Brewery, before we arise at the crack of dawn to ferry ye on out towards the greatest treasure of this silicon revolution—the eternity in a grain of sand. We have seen the future away out there, in yer hearts and spirits, and it belongs to the honest, while the poetry belongs to the profound.

In 1995 Jollyroger.com set sail from Hatteras as a labor of love, and now, by the Grace of God and the loyalty of all our intrepid readers, the Good Ship has evolved into a profitable venture that allows us to do that which we were born to do—write. Unlike most dot-com startups originating from MBA homework assignments, jollyroger.com was not launched to line the pockets of venture capitalists, but rather she set sail to serve the eternal popular culture with a renaissance—an entity which the bankers could not afford to invest in, as enduring literature must be funded by the courage of poetic passion. Very few MBAs ever comprehend the business of eternity—the subtleties of how a world may be born from a grain of sand—and thus it is left up to CEO Statesmen and Poets to captain literary ships. Business ventures tend to be considered in terms of monetary risks and rewards, whereas words of eternity must be written, come hell or high water. It was not mere information that the Good Ship sought to deliver over the internet, but poetry, and so instead heading West to Silicon Valley and raising VC, we raised The Jolly Roger to strike fear into the hearts of Truth’s opponents, and we sailed forth from Hatteras one pristine September day, beneath a Carolina-blue sky. And we never looked back.

In an era where cool has been commodified and postmodernism has triumphed in the literary, cultural, and financial arenas, where inherent worth is oft dismissed and new-age hype rules the day, jollyroger.com has stuck by the guns of fundamental principle. She has sailed steadily along her foreordained course, signing aboard loyal crew members one by one, firing broadsides from the Western Canon to defend the embattled Great Books, and laying the foundations of the world’s classical portal with the most valuable kind of seed capital—heartfelt poetry.

In the postmodern culture’s pervasive gray, it’s often difficult to perceive the Permanent Things; and thus on the foggier nights over the past five years, faith in the ancient’s words came in handy upon this deck. In the deepest darkness of the most ironic ironies, where the fog itself is concealed, there yet exists an inner light in the form of a classical yearning for Truths greater than ourselves—many know her as Faith. And like the wind and waves of an approaching hurricane, the Bible, Plato, Shakespeare, the Founding Fathers, and Melville reminded us of her—the Words of the Greats let us know that something all-powerful and great existed just beyond our mortal sight. And by Faith’s inner light and the steady winds of immortal words, we were able to navigate beyond the postmodern fog, through the popular culture’s sound and fury, on towards the center of our souls—the placid eye of existence’s storm—on towards the eternal peace of immutable words written and read in the solitude and splendor of Truth’s Freedom. Thus we know firsthand that the greatest literature serves a higher purpose than the bottom line or the advancement of political causes—words exist not only to entertain, advertise, exhort, and explain, but also to light Faith’s beacons and fill the sails of God’s Grace. From Words we have fashioned the Jolly Roger’s Oak planks of reason, riveted them with rhyme, and designed a ship to voyage across all of time.

All generations are united by the classical elements, and the poets and prophets of each age are those who perform the timeless truths in the living language, adding to and enriching the context of the eternal popular culture heralded by the Great Books. Joining in this venture has always been a risky endeavor, and thus few prudent parents have ever encouraged their children to become poets. But in this era especially, ambitious proponents of the postmodern ideology actively seek to scuttle the souls of young poets embarking on eternity’s favorite venture. The postmodern blockade serves to protect the degraded trade of the liberal industrial cultural complex, while their fog shrouds the beacons of timeless truth, thereby rendering the context for contemporary classical literature all but impossible to navigate, while endangering the very hulls of morality and Western Civilization.

http://jollyroger.com/american/renaissance.html NAVIGATING AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

Not to go off on a tangent here, but a while ago I was recalling all of the excellent computer artwork which passed this board during the so-called Clinton presidency. There was some excellent stuff, and I sent an e-m to JR suggesting the research, collection, and publication of the stuff. Never got a reply, but I still think it would be a major money maker for FR. Note to Moderator: Please pass this idea on up the line!

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