Unconscious Mutterings week 302

Unconscious Mutterings ~ link
Word & Thought Associations

here's mine:

 

Coverage :: full

Cynical :: attitude

Gust :: wind

Improvised :: poor

V :: victory

Guests :: lecturer

Brutal :: torture

Grant :: funding

Pull :: drag

Streaming :: vegetables

 

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Stop Blogging?

I suppose I owe a credit here to Robert Peake, so Let me get it out of the way before I go further into this. I will do so for three reasons.

1. It was after reading his post Blogging, Reincarnated that I was lead to Paul Boutin's Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004
2. By my citation of Peake's blog I am actually acknowledging that I read someone else's blog, thus affirming the relevance of such a practice to me.
3. While I have no way of knowing if this is the case, Robert may actually achieve some boost to his ego by my mentioning his blog. In any event, doing so is harmless.

It is true what Boutin writes about how blogging has evolved into something that become an industry. It is also true that most bloggers will never have the draw of a Daily Kos, The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan or Wired Blogs.

When I started blogging this blog, (though there was one earlier) in September of 2003 I had no delusion, no expectation that my blog would be read daily by tens of thousands of people. I am not now looking down the long barrel of disappointment and feeling threatened by any of the big name bloggers. Suggesting that if I quit now I would be in good company because Jason Calacanis who made millions blogging gave it up is insignificant to me. Perhaps if I made millions at anything I might give it up to tend to dealing with my financial portfolio in these turbulent times but I'll cross that bridge when it becomes a problem.

Blogging going mainstream is in fact a tribute to its success. Oh I know, success can be too much of a good thing. Boutin suggests that Twitter, Flicker and Facebook make blogs look so, 2004ish.  Many people have taken social networking to these levels and maintained blogs at the same time. And yes many of the big name blogs have become impersonal.  That is not necessarily true of the countless other bloggers who are not commercialized.

The niche of writer and or poet bloggers fills a large void that has become a part of the changing social fabric in our culture.  In recent years we've seen dozens of publication of the correspondence between peers - the likes of Robert Lowell, James Wright, Helen Bishop, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, etc. In the days when U.S. Mail was full of folksy letters and banter between people, writers had a chance to openly express themselves on a more intimate level with other writers. The present day writers has lost that touch. It is not necessary for me to feel I am being read by thousands upon thousands of other writer/poets. There is however a benefit in that smaller networking, from sharing trials and tribulations, rejections, successes, writers blocks and new ideas with a few others and at the same time listening to them as well. 

Twitter has caused a good deal of interest among some people. I could argue however that it is just taking mass instant messaging to another level and instant messaging is so 1990ish.  I have a facebook. I broke down and did one, but largely because of the messages from the countless literary journals that have a presence there and a few people who (coughing here) actually have blogs. It is a connecting source but hardly the same as blogging.

Boutin may actually be able to persuade some people to stop blogging. But if he is successful in making his point that blogging is really so passé he could wake up one morning and find that no one is reading Wired's Blog. But that would give his argument a whole lot of credit.

 

Technorati Tags: Blogging,Poetry,Writing,Wired,Robert Peake,Paul Boutin

Conversation with myself

When a writer is engaged in the creation of a novel, there is an audience that he/she should have in mind. I've never quite accepted that premise where writing poetry is concerned.

It seems to me that when I am writing poetry I am having a conversation with myself. Quite frankly the process will rise and fall upon the very nature of internal conflict within this very conversation. I think it was Frost who said (and I am paraphrasing) that he never knew how a poem would end till it did. That underscores a good part of the conversation that takes place. This is true when in draft and it continues in rewrite.

I think the distance between poetry and philosophy can be placed on a pin head. It is during this creation process that some of my great philosophical battles with myself occur. Sometimes taking issue with long held notions. Sometimes standing something on end to see how it looks from a different view. This is true with the message but also is true with the form the message takes.

An example of the latter would be that sometimes I like to throw punctuation out the window and at other times I cannot convince myself that it works without it.

If someone were to ask me to describe poetry, my answer today, (and tomorrow this may be different) poetry is the sum of my parts jumbled. They may not look like me, or mirror my life experiences, but the product reflects an assemblage of who I am. My poetry is my biography.

This is different from "confessional poetry" in that it is not to say that what I write is about me or about my life. It is rather about what who I am can conger into image. This is what happens when I am in conversation mode with myself and a pen.

Technorati Tags: writing,poetry,a poet's life

Journal Bits

A few bit and jottings from my journal recently...

• vases stand tall/and empty on coffee tables/that seem lost without coffee./green plants offer no proof/of authenticity
• quote from Charles Simic - "The sense of myself existing comes first. Then comes images and then language."
• The asparagus was green/with envy next to the Julian carrots./My therapist would ask/how this makes the carrots feel.

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Poetry and the President

No one doubts that President-elect Barack Obama has a very full platter. With all the critical transitioning, staffing decisions and planning for the serious financial crisis it seems he still has time for a little poetry. There a strong indication this President will be a strong supporter of the arts.

Three days post election, Obama was seen carrying a book of poems by the West Indies Nobel laureate, Derek Walcott, Those my age will recall another President who exhibited a fondness for poetry, John F. Kennedy. Will we see another poet employed in the inauguration ceremony? And if so, who might we see?

Technorati Tags: President,Arts,Poetry,Obama

The Day After Election

I was not surprised at the outcome of the general election last night though I will admit that I was a non-believer just a few short months ago. I was then convinced that Hillary Clinton was the stronger candidate. In the weeks that followed the Democratic National Convention brought me to the point of believing.  I have been immersed in Democratic Party politics for many years and what I witnessed down the stretch was perhaps the closest think I've seen to a perfect election campaign.  I am well aware that there were a number of things that led to a favorable climate for Democrats, but that said, there was no way this election would just fall into our laps.

After eight years of a president that has taken this country to a number of new lows and brought himself to a status of insignificance, America is not willing to settle something less than they believe they deserve. Ready for change, Barack Obama became the change that a majority of Americans could believe in.

The laundry list of problems facing the new president is daunting. It's almost enough to thank maybe the Democrats would be better letting the GOP claw itself out of the hole it dug for us. But more of the same is what you get when you keep trying things the same way. Democrats would be letting the country down if the cowered from the tasks ahead.

There are a number of things that went through my mind last night as Obama was giving his victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago.  There was the irony of the history of Grant Park and the demonstrators and police clashing there in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention. I also thought about the fact that in spite of several who have tried, America has never elected a Vietnam War Veteran President and this is likely the last one who will be of the age to try.

Last night was transformative in so many ways and the election of the first African American to the nations highest office is but one of those ways. It is clear to me that the polls clearly show broad support across various demographic groups. Gender, race, religion, age... clearly the fifty state strategy showed a log of confidence in the candidates message. In fact for all of the McCain charges about Obama on taxes, his support among those earning over $200,000  a year was substantial.

America is ready to turn not just a page in it's history but move on to a whole new story. Obama and the nation face multiple serious issues immediately. Obama is not a magician.  Before the election he made it clear that economic turmoil  we face will temper some of what we can undertake immediately. What I believe will benefit our country is a more inclusive attitude in the oval office. Do you recall Bush pledging to bring this nation together after the 2000 election was over? Well, I suppose he has in one respect.  It is out of the catastrophic failures in foreign policy, economic policy and loss of American standing around the world that he has brought us together.

Americans have rejected the many failed policies of the past eight years. They have expressed the view that hope is desirable to fear.  That they will not easily buy into wild charges of campaign-bait rhetoric.

After the past two elections with razor thin margins and periods of uncertainty, it was refreshing to learn the outcome by 10:00 p.m. central time. The election gods smiled upon us.

Technorati Tags: Thoughts on Obama victory

 

 

MSNBC HAS CALLED THE ELECTION FOR OBAMA

California, Washington, Oregon Have gone to Oboma and the election has been called already. There will be more added to this as the night goes on, but this is a resounding result and very unlike the long drug out 2 previous presidential elections.

I'll wrap up with more thoughts tomorrow.

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