I followed your link but saw nothing that contradicts other opinions you have written on the matter:
//Publishing your own poetry on a blog may provide [self-improvement]… But the *real* [emphasis is mine] essence… is in asking a gatekeeper to review your work and provide feedback or to submit it for publication and risk rejection.//
//Throwing a blog up with all of your poems on it as a free buffet isn’t publishing. It’s giving away your rare jewels (if the poetry is any good). If it isn’t any good then you’re just giving away pebble stones.//
These are your own words. Mixed in with the posts (from which your words are taken) is the expressed opinion that most Internet poetry is junk.
//much of what is published online, just as in print, is rubbish and ought not to be read at all.//
You then proceed to blame all that rubbish on a technology (the Internet) that allows poets to publish their own work.
Ok…
I guess, on a technicality, you *have* been saying it all along; although the thrust of your assertion (according to your own words) is very different from that of the linked article . The technicality would be in how you *define* that “poetry boom”. Do you still believe it is mostly rubbish?
Patrick, you are extrapolating. You have not gone back and looked at previous blog posts, some of which are a year old or more, and reconciled the apparent contradictions in what you are attempting to interpret these recent posts as saying and what I have been saying for over a year. You have to THINK … why in God’s name would anyone – take me out of it for a minute – why would ANYone using a particular medium criticize that medium in the manner that you are suggesting? Instead of jumping to conclusions, why not ask some clarifying questions? Why not make an attempt to really understand what is being said?
Perhaps I could have said it a little better, but the gist of the criticism isn’t aimed at the technology (nowhere do I blame the technology) but at those who would use it as a cheap means to an end. If you look at the tag line on my blog it says “commentary on 21st century poetics”. Digital distribution systems are an essential part of that discussion. So I discuss it. I discuss the good of it and the bad of it. If I am critical of certain uses of it then it’s because I care enough to get a discussion going on it. I think there is a lot of good taking place on the Internet regarding poetry and other literary endeavors, but we have a long way to go. There is so much potential not being realized for various reasons. And no one has a handle on all of it.
I didn’t extrapolate. I didn’t jump “to conclusions”. I copied and pasted your own words!
I notice in your clarification that you haven’t backed away from your assertion that Internet poetry is “mostly rubbish”. That’s ok… maybe you’re right. I don’t know.
//You have not gone back and looked at previous blog posts, some of which are a year old or more, and reconciled the apparent contradictions in what you are attempting to interpret these recent posts//
That’s not my job! That’s yours! Claiming that I haven’t combed through a year’s worth of posts is not the same as clarifying your position!
And, yes, you *do* discourage poets from publishing online. You’re post “Self Publishing Poetry: The Problem With Vanity”, is explicit in that regard. That’s ok. That’s a legitimate position and an interesting one. I disagree with but I could be wrong. What tweaks me is when, not two or three posts later, I read your unqualified self-congratulation! You want your cake and you want to eat it too.
I’m not buying.
You encourage the technology in some ways, and discourage it in others.
No it’s not.
If you *had* been “saying it all along”, you would *not* be discouraging poets from publishing & promoting their poetry online.
A poetry ka-Boom! ?
Patrick, I don’t discourage poets from publishing or promoting their poetry online. I encourage it.
I followed your link but saw nothing that contradicts other opinions you have written on the matter:
//Publishing your own poetry on a blog may provide [self-improvement]… But the *real* [emphasis is mine] essence… is in asking a gatekeeper to review your work and provide feedback or to submit it for publication and risk rejection.//
//Throwing a blog up with all of your poems on it as a free buffet isn’t publishing. It’s giving away your rare jewels (if the poetry is any good). If it isn’t any good then you’re just giving away pebble stones.//
These are your own words. Mixed in with the posts (from which your words are taken) is the expressed opinion that most Internet poetry is junk.
//much of what is published online, just as in print, is rubbish and ought not to be read at all.//
You then proceed to blame all that rubbish on a technology (the Internet) that allows poets to publish their own work.
Ok…
I guess, on a technicality, you *have* been saying it all along; although the thrust of your assertion (according to your own words) is very different from that of the linked article . The technicality would be in how you *define* that “poetry boom”. Do you still believe it is mostly rubbish?
Patrick, you are extrapolating. You have not gone back and looked at previous blog posts, some of which are a year old or more, and reconciled the apparent contradictions in what you are attempting to interpret these recent posts as saying and what I have been saying for over a year. You have to THINK … why in God’s name would anyone – take me out of it for a minute – why would ANYone using a particular medium criticize that medium in the manner that you are suggesting? Instead of jumping to conclusions, why not ask some clarifying questions? Why not make an attempt to really understand what is being said?
Perhaps I could have said it a little better, but the gist of the criticism isn’t aimed at the technology (nowhere do I blame the technology) but at those who would use it as a cheap means to an end. If you look at the tag line on my blog it says “commentary on 21st century poetics”. Digital distribution systems are an essential part of that discussion. So I discuss it. I discuss the good of it and the bad of it. If I am critical of certain uses of it then it’s because I care enough to get a discussion going on it. I think there is a lot of good taking place on the Internet regarding poetry and other literary endeavors, but we have a long way to go. There is so much potential not being realized for various reasons. And no one has a handle on all of it.
Allen,
I didn’t extrapolate. I didn’t jump “to conclusions”. I copied and pasted your own words!
I notice in your clarification that you haven’t backed away from your assertion that Internet poetry is “mostly rubbish”. That’s ok… maybe you’re right. I don’t know.
//You have not gone back and looked at previous blog posts, some of which are a year old or more, and reconciled the apparent contradictions in what you are attempting to interpret these recent posts//
That’s not my job! That’s yours! Claiming that I haven’t combed through a year’s worth of posts is not the same as clarifying your position!
And, yes, you *do* discourage poets from publishing online. You’re post “Self Publishing Poetry: The Problem With Vanity”, is explicit in that regard. That’s ok. That’s a legitimate position and an interesting one. I disagree with but I could be wrong. What tweaks me is when, not two or three posts later, I read your unqualified self-congratulation! You want your cake and you want to eat it too.
I’m not buying.
You encourage the technology in some ways, and discourage it in others.