Dear Bloggers

The best thing I’ve come across by blogging is FreeCycle! *lol* Just a quick note to thank you for mentioning the site, it’s great. Have a great time in Costa Rica.

Mine’s not the most educational nor interesting, but I’ve gotten a chance to develop another community (can’t have too many of those). Plus, I’ve gotten to meet some great people and have more than my share of fun.

I definitely write more because of blogging. I’m constantly inspired by or interested in what people are writing, reading, writing about, thinking about, and it gives me a chance to write about the things that are sticking in my brain and hear other perspectives.

I’ve gotten to know interesting people, people I respect and admire…it’s all around good stuff.

PS: Got my issue of 32 Poems today. Thanks for resending it!

It’s good in that it sucks me into realizing, what otherwise would be good intentions about keeping, a journal of sorts. It’s more public than a real journal, mostly just an attempt to make substantive conversation.

It’s bad in that it drags me off into side discussions of politics and the local poetry scene, which is not, in the end, the same as writing poetry. In this, it can be as bad a black hole for timewasting as, say, television.

I have no desire to blog poems. I publish infrequently on purpose: I don’t want to put unrealized stuff out there.

Anything I blog is 100% subject to change at any time.

Blogging for me started out as an extension of my personal journal. But that didn’t really work. So I stopped for a few months.

When I started the blog up again I decided to use the blog as an excuse to revisit my archive. (I even started a second blog to trace my reading life.) I’ve surprised myself by enjoying revising online. I post an old poem (I’ve lately been choosing poems more than 20 years old) then subject the poem to various changes. Doing it on the blog really helps with the motivation. Although my audience is still largely imaginary, the poem feels exposed and since it’s exposed, since it’s standing out there in public naked, I want it to be an unembarrassed naked so I distract it by putting it through a series of dance moves. After awhile it gets to dancing on its own, then I forget all about who might be watching and just sit there entranced. Yes, I’ve revised lots of poems over the years, but this is the first method that has kept me at a poem that was initially unpromising, a poem that I had no idea how to fix.

Since finding blogger.com i’ve been writing loads of stuff….some poems…some rants and other general stuff. If anyone is reading this i’d be honoured for any feedback on my work thanks for your time

I feel that publishing poems is useless unles they are a) finished or as close to it as one can get, or b) being actively workshopped online or c) published for the sake of the poet who wants to say, “I published something.”

I’m no advocate of self-censorship. I just think that (in general) blogs are a neither fish nor fowl thing, neither largely-private journal nor truly public forum, with a very few exceptions for heavy traffic.

There’s a little something prurient in reading other people’s journals. I don’t like the blogs that are endless “Today I came home and fed the cat after my statistics class” accountings of time. I prefer the ones that are more like open conversations at a cafe’ or on a sidewalk (like this). These seem more to be e-mail threads with print/digital layout sensibilities.

What I really DO like about blogs are that they allow the chance for readers not only to respond, but to extend the conversation. Readers are part of the publishing equation. If a writer depends on reader feedback, blogging’s one way to get it.

OTOH, as regards poetry, my point was that a successful poem doesn’t live or die based on public acceptance. A piece may be 50 or 100 years ahead of its time and not find an audience until then. Another piece may be poorly crafted but widely popular.

I gues I’m still trying to figure out what blogging (as opposed to a website presenting “finished” content) can do for me. I think of it as a semi-public creative writing exercise–but not a finished product. I’m still fiddling with it.

I think blogging has helped my poetry. It does keep me current and in touch. I have actually put poems in progress up on my blog and had other poets give me grief for airing my “imperfect” work. Personally, I don’t see it like that. The poems I post are usually in a middle draft and will get several more before I decide if they are possibilities for submission or if they will be stored in a notebook or hard drive for future reference. Or maybe the poem only works as a performance piece, and not on paper. My two cents.