[New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Blogs

[Anny Ballardini]

What you are writing and sharing with us, is exceptional. I have a blog and my spontaneous reaction to your observation of wanting to _hide your thoughts made my inner I speak up:
nothing more secret than a blog!

Oh yes, the sitemeter shows that many were there browsing around, but since this is the time of plenty in the history of poetry, things get read and forgotten, or maybe not even read.

As a matter of fact I do not post too many poems, as I have recently collected my latest, still online, but on a different site.

I use my blog as a big fat agenda. I has pics in it, thoughts, links, unsaid things, observations, and some more.

I like to have a place where I can find my things and quotations. There is a slot in which you can type a word, for example "well" and there you have all the posts that contain that word.

A luxury for those who like me had to move frequently and have forever missed that book, that quotation, that idea that might have led to something else,

I am also very interested in knowing what a blog is for the other bloggers.

  From: David Graham 
  Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 4:15 PM


  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
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