Joe Amato on Blogs

[from the Poetics List, posted here with Joe's permission -- this is NOT a plagiarism file]

on the one hand, as alan sondheim suggests, blogs are simply part of a growing online suite---lists, irc, moos, muds, and so forth... and we'll each be free to pick and choose on the basis of what we like, technical difficulties notwithstanding... i've never myself much liked moos/muds, for instance, and i've always gone online primarily with the intention of seeking out dialogue (as opposed, e.g., to role-playing, which puts me somewhat at odds with the gaming communities, and at odds with more performative engagements, and at odds even with argument as such, though i imagine that all true dialogue presupposes some degree of conflict, and though i love a good debate)...

times have changed---quickly... the web itself changed the internet irrevocably... while giving us the archive, it seems also to have given us the ability to archive our lives (i'll set aside the matter of whether this is symptomatic of other cultural-social-regionalizing trends)...

now: just as some people will be better at dialogue, others will prove better at archiving, and blogging, and so forth... to be candid, i don't want to read all of the blogs written by the folks on this list, not least (and this is one reason why i hesitate to post on this thread) b/c you all don't express yourselves with equal aplomb (i am trying to be nice)... but also b/c what you all have to say, and how you enact/demonstrate what you have to say, doesn't really interest me...

this is ok, though, right?---b/c this is what it means to say that each is free to pick and choose, as above...

but to zero in a bit: in point of fact---and again, i'm trying not to be harsh---i'm much less interested in what ron silliman has to say about bertolucci (re which i think i can offer up some comments that are at least as provocative) than in what he has to say about berkeley and brautigan and the 60s... since i wasn't in berkeley in the 60s, i find this to be of historical interest to me as a poet... but there may be another issue at stake here too---i.e., as to why i'm reading ron on berkeley side-by-side with his remarks on bertolucci...

now i'm on the verge of saying something about the current state of poetry and poetics, but i'll leave that for a book, b/c that's how much space i need to say it... i certainly don't mean to beat up on ron---and what's more, even if i DID beat up on ron (sorry for dragging you into this ron!), he'd still have those 100,000 hits, right?... which is an odd, or at least different, form of assessment than we're accustomed to making, when you think about it...

still, there is one rather elementary observation i'd like to make here: and this is that, in part b/c of spam, but also as a consequence of the larger and larger number of typing anthropoids who are making their way online, things are getting, well, just a bit overwhelming, yes?---whether in terms of blogs or in terms of lists or whatever... one alan sondheim was one thing, ten alan sondheims is another thing altogether (and here again, not everyone can do what alan does, so---)... my way of saying, if i may, that attention span may be a nonrenewable resource, and that quantitative differences can have qualitative effects... one poetry blog is one thing, 400 poetry blogs is another thing altogether, and 4000 poetry blogs may be a sign that we think we're more different (or, uhm, articulate) than we are...

i have an argument about this that goes something like: more readers turned writers (which has historical precedent)... for another time maybe...

to be candid, i think we're reaching something of a breakpoint (or, another breakpoint, as the web has ushered in several already, it seems to me) in terms of attention span---which as i see it assumes only that many of us would like to spend a few hours a day OFFline... will exploiting new technologies of communication/expression in and of itself foster a more dialogic poetry/poetics reality?... not anymore than will this list automatically foster dialogue...

just look around...

and there may in fact be limits at work here---functional limits... i know it's not popular, generally, to discuss limits on this list, but that the human eye can't see a single frame at 24 frames/second might prompt us to give some thought as to what a dialogic limit might be, properly speaking and in terms of something approaching a community...

anyway... i take it as axiomatic that dialogue is vital to sustaining a healthy arts environs... i certainly don't mean to suggest that we shouldn't be exploiting our new technologies---i mean to say that we would probably do well to bring to our exploits a working sense of what we hope to achieve vis-a-vis other typing anthropoids...

and from where i'm sitting, we're coming up a bit short, collectively speaking... i mean, if only to judge by kari edwards's stated concerns re the planet (*this* planet)---which may not be the datum we would want to use on a daily basis, of course, but which does seem to me a reasonable way of situating our concerns---the online world as currently articulated is managing, if not to intensify, then certainly not to mitigate the divide e.g. between art and commerce (which to my way of thinking ought to be mutually and beneficially dependent)... and if the commercial, profit-driven possibilities of the web, say, are permitted to run roughshod over art, well: i don't think this bodes well for art OR commerce, never mind whether distribution of poetry profits in the meantime (b/c as we all know, just about nobody is getting rich off of poetry---which poets ought not to use as an excuse for dropping off into a dogmatic slumber)...

so apologies for putting it this way, but: attention to the quality [term used advisedly] of what we're expressing/communicating may be the only way to offset what i see as these encroaching numbers... by "quality" i don't necessarily mean stylistic nuance, if that too... if all i can do here is make an appeal---and all i can do here IS make an appeal---i would ask, as presumptuous as it may be OF me to ask, that those of you who imagine your work as bloggers, discussants, what have you, work even harder to make your words matter...

now, you see why i didn't want to post in?... thanks for listening, at any rate...

best,

joe

* * *

one final thought for now, and i'm done for the day: perhaps blogs would work best in fact were they to be constructed around the "cabinets of wonder" idea (i'm thinking of lawrence weschler's book on same)... i.e., were they to intensify the very boutique quality that alan finds problematic, in order to create, or approximate, a sense of wonder...

which we can always stand more of...

just a thought, and maybe i'm entirely off-base here... btw, and just for instance, i'm finding *this* discussion provocative and engaging if only b/c we've managed, what, a dozen or more posts together in less than 24 hrs. on a single topic or topic set, and w/o a meltdown...

///

joe


[there was an equally keen follow-up to this post, but i'll defer to the Poetics List archive for that one]