[New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Blogs

[David Graham]

No blog for me, alas or hooray as the case may be.  It's not that I  
am not filled with lofty and important thoughts about poesie, and  
surely it would be a kindness for me to share more with the world,  
but the fact is, I am selfish.

I've been keeping an analog writing journal for over 30 years now,  
and am pretty religious about putting words into it daily.  Like many  
writers I am rather ritualistic about my habits:  has to be a 9x6  
lined spiral notebook, black ink pen.  I am also addicted to the  
notion--very much an anti-blog ethos, I realize--that the essential  
nature of my journal is its privacy.  Knowing that no one need ever  
see a word I write there is one thing that keeps me honest, gives me  
permission to jot down *anything*, no matter how disreputable,  
pointless, or embarrassing.  Without the privacy option, I'm afraid I  
would do more self-censoring and less wild experimentation.

One thing that's kept me from blogging is that I'm afraid to fix  
something that ain't broke, at least in terms of my own personal  
workshop.  It's hard to see how blogging wouldn't cut down on my  
journal keeping.  Or worse, encourage more self-censorship.

And when I've got some poetical rumination in my journal that I think  
the world needs to know about, well, I can always type it up & post  
here. . . .  If I had more hours in the day, I'd probably be tempted  
to blog in addition to journal keeping, but only if it didn't hurt  
the analog journal.

I'm curious to know from the bloggers among us:  has blogging changed  
your writing habits notably?




========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================



On Jun 8, 2007, at 12:23 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

> A while back, I announced that I was going to write about poetry  
> blogs in my Small Press review column.  Since then, I've done a  
> number of them, covering some New-Poetry members' blogs--Mike  
> Snider's and Chris Lott's, for instance.  I'm working on another  
> installment in which I'll be mentioning David Graham's list of  
> blogs, and his Poetry Library.  I want to mention the blog I  
> thought you had, too, David--although it looks like you are one of  
> the few of us without one.  If you have one, please let me know its  
> URL.
>
> Anyone else who wants to make me aware of a blog, do so.  I can't  
> be exhaustive, but I'm trying to cover as many as I can--across the  
> whole range of what's going on in American poetry.  The column I'm  
> doing today will be about James F.'s, Halvard's, Anny's, Jeff's,  
> Tom Beckett's--and David's, if he has one.  Won't, alas, be able to  
> say much about any of them--but something.
>
> Thanks, Bob
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070611/b20aad91/attachment.html