Hi Sheila,
Blogging is much easier than I'd anticipated. It took me less than half an hour to set up my blog (think it's on Google's 'Blogger' site).
Once you've set up your blog, posting items & maintaining the blog is very intuitive. I love blogging, & I'm sure that my favourite poets like Milt & Al, who were avid letter writers, would be keen bloggers with the availability of this technology.
I've been blogging for just over 2 years, & I've been able to post my own favourite older & newer writing. I've also been able to post pieces by friends, & this has helped extend the readership of the blog. I remember just over a year ago I was pleased when I reached
an average of 45 hits (readers) a day. Now I'm averaging over 100 hits a day.
Blogging has been a great help with organizing events & projects, such as annual PurdyFests, the TO tributes to Ray Souster & Milton Acorn, & now publicizing & gathering submissions for a tribute book on Milt with Mosaic Press.
I've also been able to put forward my opinions on local, national & international situations - people's democracy in action. Often my blog piece is then printed as a letter-to-the-editor in mainstream media. It's great being able to make my opinions heard.
One example is our local council was strongly promoting the building of a reservoir on top of the slag heap of an abandoned mine site. The slag heap hangs over the edge of the village, & a reservoir placed up there would have posed a grave flood risk. The local reeve lied that there was unanimous local support from our village, but by posting my opposition on my blog, I was able to give published proof that this was an example of 'the big lie'. The silly project
now appears dead from other causes, but it felt empowering to be able to publicly & permanently voice my objections online.
I hope you start your own blog - blogging is real People's Poetry Power in action.
peace,
Chris ... & Chase (very shorn with his spring trim) ... a bit self-conscious & chastened, perhaps wffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Conrad DiDiodato has left a new comment on your post "sloggin' 'n bloggin' for People's Poetry: 100+ vis...":
The Net is the best platform for 'people's poetry': I'm convinced of it. It will wrest power/influence from the professionalized/institutionalized purveyors of literary truth--the academics and their mainly academic presses--who've all but destroyed it and restore poetry (and a lot of other things) back to the 'amateurs' who've always made the greatest cultural discoveries (Darwin and Mendel, for example, made their incredible discoveries mainly on their own) The most significant poets have always been ordinary citizens extraordinarily gifted, coming from all socio-economic backgrounds: Pound, Zukofsky, Layton, Avison, Williams, Stevens, Purdy, etc etc.
Through collaborative 'amateur' efforts that the Net facilitates we'll return to something like a significant poetry. It's a question of time, personal effort and resources freely shared.
Posted by Conrad DiDiodato to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 13 April 2013 09:50
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Hi Conrad,
Thanks for adding your comments, which are far more important & insightful than my posting! The more I work (& play) on the web, the more I believe in its importance for the advancement of mankind. Yes, true poetry has to be a labour of love, not a few lines scripted for an academic resume.
Lots of People's Poetry events coming up - James Deahl is organizing another launch for his new Acorn Selected at Q Space on July 4th (yeah! that's Yankee Go Home Day to some of us). And a few weeks after that it's PurdyFest #7 (this year it'll be LivesayFest to honour Dorothy Livesay). Hope you can make it to some of these gigs.
peace & poetry power!
Chris ... & Chase wfffffffffff (happy, wet & bedraggled after walking in drizzle to the LCBO & down by the river ...)
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2 comments:
The Net is the best platform for 'people's poetry': I'm convinced of it. It will wrest power/influence from the professionalized/institutionalized purveyors of literary truth--the academics and their mainly academic presses--who've all but destroyed it and restore poetry (and a lot of other things) back to the 'amateurs' who've always made the greatest cultural discoveries (Darwin and Mendel, for example, made their incredible discoveries mainly on their own) The most significant poets have always been ordinary citizens ordinarily gifted, coming from all socio-economic backgrounds: Pound, Zukofsky, Layton, Avison, Williams, Stevens, Purdy, etc etc.
Through collaborative 'amateur' efforts that the Net facilitates we'll return to something like a significant poetry. It's a question of time, personal effort and resources freely shared.
I meant to say "ordinary citizens extraordinarily gifted" in my previous post.
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