Which Way To Turn?

My friend Nigel was around here Friday after we’d been to see “The Darjeeling Limited” which, incidentally, is a wonderful movie. Wes Anderson movies are just brilliant. (That was a review, by the way. Short and to the point.) Anyways, Nigel was browsing through the books on my table while we started in on the red wine and I knocked up a quick chilli. We got to talking about just how much poetry there is around and how, with the internet at our fingertips, it’s all available but also, somehow, not available at all. There’s a weight of numbers that is almost overwhelming and there’s no way (is there?) that you can even begin to approach the half of it. Of course, this has always been the case even before the internet. Mimeo’d magazines abounded years ago, and there were loads and loads of poets in those, too. Maybe it’s the case that there are always loads and loads of poets. Too many? I’m guilty as hell, of course, because I’m one of them. But it’s easier to get to their work now, or it’s easier to get to their names. You don’t have to write a letter to someone and enclose a cheque and wait for the postman. So how do you sort out who to read, and how do you read? Do you stick with the few websites you know, and follow their recommendations? Do you, for example, trust Stride or Shearsman, and stick with them and only them because there are only so many hours in the day, and days in the week? And do you spend back-breaking hours in an uncomfortable chair in front of your computer reading poems online? My back aches just thinking about doing that.

Thinking about the numbers thing, and how much there is to read out there in cyberpoetryworld, here’s what happens if you follow a thread I, a very guilty one, started. If you begin here and follow the link to the publisher and go to here and click on “poets” and arrive here you find a list of 27 poets, only a couple of whom I’ve heard. Then click on the poetry links to get to here and Shearsman is top of the list so go there and click on authors and arrive here. There are 132 people listed. I’ve heard of many of them, for what it’s worth. Shearsman has its share of bigger names, I guess. By comparison, if we’d gone here we’d have only come across 9 poets. They must be a new press.

Of course, like I said, I'm guilty too. I contribute to this poetry superstore. If a couple of weeks ago you did as I suggested and went here then you’d have found 61 (I think it’s 61) poets. Sixty-one! Did you read them all? I didn’t. And it’s not because I didn’t want to, it’s because I spend half my life in front of this fucking computer and enough is enough.

And I have all those links down in E&D’s sidebar that will take you to so many places, but how much can you actually read? Without going into too many personal details, I like to go to bed and read. I like to have stuff pile up on what passes as my bedside table (it’s a floor, actually) and I read a bit of something then listen to the midnight news and fall asleep. But I can’t do that with what's on the internet, so "Dusie Issue 6" is loitering in cyberspace, untouched by me now, and I haven’t looked at it anything like as much as I would have done had it been something I could take to bed. I look at what I take to bed. Honestly, I do.

Perhaps it’s my being back into teaching creative writing, albeit in a smallish kind of a way and already, even after only a few weeks, shying away from the questions that always creep into my head whenever I do that. Maybe I should just ignore all those questions and get on with whatever it is I get on with. I know writing this post is a waste of time. I know even thinking about this is a waste of time. So much of what I do is a waste of time.

But if I stay mildly bothered and troubled, the logical conclusion to all this of course -- which I think boils down to a more than slightly confused mix of "There is too much of this stuff, and how the hell do you even begin to read the half of it?" (which is stupid, because I'd never argue for less making) & "Does poetry on the internet make for comfortable reading?" (poetry armchair & bed lovers of the world, I am one of you) -- is that (a) I should stop writing poems, to reduce the number of poets by one (b) I should shut down this website, to reduce the number of websites by one (c) I should buy printed books and magazines of poetry to take to bed, which I almost never do and (d) I should come up with a reason for even talking about this in the first place. I know this is ridiculously circular, somewhat rambling, and not asking any particular question, and only an expression of a certain unease with Poetry World that's always with me but usually remains reasonably well suppressed (albeit not wonderfully suppressed.) So forgive me. But anyway:

(d) is very difficult, because I don’t really know what my point is, except one of feeling just mildly troubled about something.

But while (d) is very difficult, (a) (b) and (c) are really easy to do.

Comments

[K.M. Dersley]

Martin, when you say 'this post is a waste of time,' do you mean the Creative Writing post or the blog post? Or both? There is a great gap between the huge amount of poetry that is touted at you (legitimately enough) these days and what makes a true impact on YOU, that you yourself can really like. The effort of having to remind yourself that there are poets out there that you ought to know about and probably like is deadly. The ones that really 'reach', you will know them, discover them with a light browse, and they will make a dent. You will then want to go after their works and find that thousands of others have plenty of books out and he/she just a skinny chapbook or two. But letting your nose and its true snese of odour lead you immediately simplifies things.
One reason I will never do Creative Writing Workshops is that you have to give fair attention to anyone who comes along. They may be terrible as poets, or they may be fairly good or even brilliant but terrible for you, and you've got to sit there and take it, you see. At least for an hour or so.
A blog post here though that piques preoccupations that have pulled at me quite a bit. Thanks for it, you're saying what a lot must be thinking.

[Martin]

I meant the website post, the ramble, not the job post. I'm sorry that was unclear. The creative writing things I'm doing at the moment are fine.

No, it's not "creative writing" classes that are my point here. I'm not wholly sure what my point is, except I know it's not that.

[Andrew Bailey]

If it were food, and you were wondering what the point would be if you couldn't taste the food of all the cooks, it wouldn't stop you cooking. As metaphors go, it also lets you think of recommendations and taste and the inexplicable popularity of certain franchises. Which would make Sarah Crown a Zagat reviewer, presumably.

What would you do in however long it took to write this that isn't a waste of time, in the long view? And is me responding to it even more a waste of time, or a retrospective justification of it in that it's two-way communication now? That latter would mean you wouldn't know if you were wasting your time until later, which is probably true of poetry as well. But I'd say worrying about it is a good sign; those that don't worry are, well, Heston Blumenthal or microwaving burgers.

[Sandra Tappenden]

You`re only saying what anyone who reads poetry on a regular basis says, but generally not to an audience... If you care about something, you worry about it, and it worries you; a kind of unspoken deal. I think about it (maybe) as having the same dilemmas attached as giving to charity (?!): you have to choose,to make any sense at all of what`s `out there`. And that`s a choice based upon a certain sensibility a whole lifetime has informed, so you cant even jump outside it for more than a minute without being fraudulent.

And where does all this stuff aching to be read come from? If it`s mostly `white western` then you have to ask a whole different set of questions? I dont think I can address yr posting without bringing geopolitics into the mix. Sorry.

Phewph. Dare to be small, I say. Concentrate. What`s wrong with a culture of focus?

[richard lopez]

serious points raised, but i can't help but think about the over-abundance of music too. does anyone go into a record store [which might be a moot question now since it seems most consumers of music download from the net] and worry that of all the thousands of artists for sale that one would need several dozen lifetimes to listen to them all. and film. each time i go into the local video store and can't find a single thing to watch among the thousands available i despair. not quite the same thing as worrying over too much as opposed to not finding something to suit my tastes. at any rate, the video store is filled to the rafters of videos that would take years of my life to view, if that were my aim.

but it's not. i think the net is great for poetry, and i'm always making discoveries and googling the names of poets who've caught my fancy. sure i worry that i'm not giving all the poets i read a fair shake. but, man, i read who excite me. and for my aching back, i use my laptop where the thing sits in my lap and can be read like a newspaper, sort of.

[Martin]

Thanks for all of this. I worry all the time. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I do.

Maybe it's just that occasionally I have to let that worry out into the open air, then I feel better. I'm not sure I do feel better, but so it goes....

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