Poetry and the Web go together remarkably well. It's a good fit, for several reasons. The average length of a modern American poem is just about one screenload of text. Then, there's the money. A Hollywood producer who sinks $100 million into a film can't afford to give it away on the Web. But since it costs next to nothing to write a poem, publishing it to be viewed for free on the Web is not such a big change from previous methods of disseminating poems. Poets have pretty much always given it away.
But the thing that impresses me most, and this is going to sound perverse, is the relative permanence of Web publishing over print publishing. How can I say that, when everyone else is bemoaning the evanescent nature of pixels compared to good old corporeal paper and ink?
I've published some poems in printed "little" magazines, all of them now out of print. Occasionally a copy will turn up in the catalog of a rare book dealer. But so few copies of literary journals are printed to begin with, and so few kept, that you might as well seal a poem into a bottle and cast it into the ocean.
On the other hand, nearly every poem I have ever published on the Web is still instantly available, anywhere in the world. The very first was in an early ezine called Blue Moon Review, and here it still is www.thebluemoon.com/4/weinstock.html
A large group of poems came out in 1997 in Riding the Meridian, from web publishing pioneer Jennifer Ley. http://www.heelstone.com/meridian/weinstock.html. And it's all still there to be read, and has been read far more times than it ever could have been if immured in the pages of low-circulation little mags.
The real reason poetry and the Web are a perfect marriage--there aren't many people who care about it, and before the Web it was labor-intensive for them to find each other. In this they resemble enthusiasts of nearly every other small-niche interest. What the Web has done is create truly vibrant and growing communities of people who share the same rare allergies, collecting hobbies, obsessions, and kinks.
I don't think poetry is just a kink. It's a mother art, a wellspring of all of our literature, lively arts and culture. But now, with the Web, poetry never had it so good.
But the thing that impresses me most, and this is going to sound perverse, is the relative permanence of Web publishing over print publishing. How can I say that, when everyone else is bemoaning the evanescent nature of pixels compared to good old corporeal paper and ink?
I've published some poems in printed "little" magazines, all of them now out of print. Occasionally a copy will turn up in the catalog of a rare book dealer. But so few copies of literary journals are printed to begin with, and so few kept, that you might as well seal a poem into a bottle and cast it into the ocean.
On the other hand, nearly every poem I have ever published on the Web is still instantly available, anywhere in the world. The very first was in an early ezine called Blue Moon Review, and here it still is www.thebluemoon.com/4/weinstock.html
A large group of poems came out in 1997 in Riding the Meridian, from web publishing pioneer Jennifer Ley. http://www.heelstone.com/meridian/weinstock.html. And it's all still there to be read, and has been read far more times than it ever could have been if immured in the pages of low-circulation little mags.
The real reason poetry and the Web are a perfect marriage--there aren't many people who care about it, and before the Web it was labor-intensive for them to find each other. In this they resemble enthusiasts of nearly every other small-niche interest. What the Web has done is create truly vibrant and growing communities of people who share the same rare allergies, collecting hobbies, obsessions, and kinks.
I don't think poetry is just a kink. It's a mother art, a wellspring of all of our literature, lively arts and culture. But now, with the Web, poetry never had it so good.
I agree with the sentiment about poetry and the web, but the "permanence" issue isn't so simple. The small press paper poems may be hard to find, but until they are truly IMPOSSIBLE to find they are far more extant than the millions of sites that are gone forever. Problem with web permanence is that it is too often tied to a single physical incarnation *somewhere* and, WayBack machines and all, they disappear without a trace all the time. At least with print there are multiple copies that have to be lost and destroyed.
ReplyDeleteSo, sometimes you win and a web site stays up a long time and sometime you lose and the web site disappears. And if you look at a span of 20+ years, which is nothing for a printed journal (I just picked up a bunch of 25+ year old journals a few months ago), the vast majority of web material will be lost just as effectively as print.
Of course this is also why all the FUD about "digital footprints" and leaving embarrassing material on the web is ultimately specious... and much easier to deal with by makign more good stuff than by trying to never make a trace at all...
Oh, this topic fascinates me, and thank you David, and thank you Chris.
ReplyDeleteLet's please also teach our children to recite poems aloud, as a backup -- that way if all the books get burned, and all the internet goes down, we'll still have a tradition :)
David, you're both right and pessimistic when you say, "
The real reason poetry and the Web are a perfect marriage--there aren't many people who care about it, and before the Web it was labor-intensive for them to find each other. " Honestly, I think you underestimate the percentage of people who love poetry.
It's not that ... instead, they may be living in remote areas where you're lucky to get a chain-bookstore, or even a religious bookstore. It's the Labor-Intensive part that gets us.
Good, good idea to make backups in all possible media.
Oh, this topic fascinates me, and thank you David, and thank you Chris.
ReplyDeleteLet's please also teach our children to recite poems aloud, as a backup -- that way if all the books get burned, and all the internet goes down, we'll still have a tradition :)
David, you're both right and pessimistic when you say, "
The real reason poetry and the Web are a perfect marriage--there aren't many people who care about it, and before the Web it was labor-intensive for them to find each other. " Honestly, I think you underestimate the percentage of people who love poetry.
It's not that ... instead, they may be living in remote areas where you're lucky to get a chain-bookstore, or even a religious bookstore. It's the Labor-Intensive part that gets us.
Good, good idea to make backups in all possible media.
I agree with you to the extent that poetry and the web make comfortable bedfellows, but I would say it is more a matter of accessibility than longevity. Webzines will only be around for as long as somebody is prepared to give them server space, just as their treeware counterparts will be there until the library wants the shelf space for something newer. However, while they are adrift out there in fantasyland, finding a particular poem is as simple as a Google search for shoes or pizza or load cells. If you remember a poem it will be because there was a felicitous turn of phrase: "The toad beneath the harrow knows..." or "mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful..." and you can root it out in minutes. By contrast, laying your hand on the book you know is somewhere, maybe upstairs, and possibly with a blue spine can be a very time-consuming and frustrating affair.
ReplyDelete