So I'm reading David Kamp's review of Ultimate Blogs, Masterworks From the Wild Web -- NY Times Book Review, 3/23/08. I'm more addicted than ever to blog blog blog. But I'll never have it down, never make it as an Ultimate Blogger. Too old, too unable to write "good bloggy prose," too unable to write without at least a _little_ editing. Though best poems, Uncle Dog and some others, were written in just this way, flash flash, bang bang... then fuss with the punctuation. Just did it. Did it and done. On to the next. Even as a journalist (Toronto Star, Globe & Mail), I wasn't really a reporter. I was a book reviewer, a feature writer, which suited me fine. I got to think, I got to have conversations with people, read books, do a little research... edit edit edit... A real reporter would just do it, fast fast fast... and on to the next... so blogging, I think is more like that, "reporting," though one is essentially reporting on oneself, using the Web to do the equivalent (ha!) of what diarist Samuel Pepys was doing in England a couple centuries ago. Writing about himself, what he observed, the good and the bad, the city (London), the times, the daily daily doings...
But I'm not "conversational and restless," well, maybe... yeah, but "reckless"? Reckless in what sense? He'll say anything. Someone who takes pleasure in surprising himself. Kamp the reviewer speaks of "chin-strokers," big time serious folks like Nobel economist Gary Becker and federal circuit judge Richard Posner, who share a blog "in which they bat serious issues back and forth..." others, I'm discovering, create alt-comix blogs whose work appears in panel form.
Now I've started this thing, something wells up, once, twice a week, and giving way to the urge, I scribble notes onto "Blogger.com/post-create". In truth, I'm writing more blog these days than poetry. Why and why not does something have to be a poem?
Poetry. "I too dislike it," says poet Marianne Moore in a poem titled Poetry. What she mainly dislikes is the phoniness, the not real, the bullshit... but still, she says, there's a place for it. So while I want an audience, I'm used to _not_ having readers for my poetry and these days am adapting to the idea of _not_ having readers for my blog. Spent half a century, I'm that fucking old! keeping up a journal that I never thought to inflict on anyone. What did I get out of it? I dunno. A poem or two. And I think of all those boxes, all those notebooks, scribble scribble scribble, at Washington University in St. Louis, my little archive. At least it's there and not under my desk or in a closet somewhere. Boxes and boxes and boxes. We're talking 50, 60, 70... lots and lots of boxes.
Must somehow enjoy it, blogging, because I'm using the time that might go into adding a counter to my blog, to blog... the blogging is taking priority... why put 20, 30 minutes into adding a counter when I can put 20, 30 minutes into writing the damn thing? And I don't even want to know if anyone is reading it. You're reading it. So add a comment, okay?
From what Sarah Boxer says in Ultimate Blog I guess what you want is people to comment. That's the sign of success, that's what counts for Big Time Bloggers... so far the only people who comment on my little strand of a strand of a strand are friends and family. Enough.
8 comments:
If you're thinking of discarding your relentless drive, can I have it?
I've got lots of empty notebooks.
Dear Anonymous,
Appreciate the offer. I guess you mean contents of hard drive? Or...?
r.
No no -- the drive that led you to fill 70 boxes' worth of notebooks with scribbling. I could use some of that.
Dear Anonymous,
Ah, I see... well, thank you... yet I look at the product, 70 boxes' worth of notebooks with scribbling, shake my head... what was that all about? A lot of it is just multiple versions, draft A, draft B, draft C... of some sometimes not very good poems...
"I look at the product....what was that all about?"
As somebody or other once said, writing is like looking for interesting shells that have washed up on the beach. All you have to do is supply the beach. And the ocean. And about half the shells.
Seventy boxes of wet sand is accomplishment. As the man said, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. But in this case it was directed vanity...which beats the directionless kind any day.
And now I must go back to spinning my wheels.
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you. I like that, "As somebody or other once said, writing is like looking for interesting shells that have washed up on the beach. All you have to do is supply the beach. And the ocean. And about half the shells."
By the way, could you say a word or two about yourself?
"could you say a word or two about yourself?"
That...is a koan. And my inability to answer is one reason for all my empty notebooks.
I will think on this.
Dear Anonymous,
You are ahead of me, my friend. For all the clutter, I aspire to emptiness.
r.
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