Hypocrite Ecrivain, Mon Frere, Mon Semblable

David Hill (pictured standing at one of the Bardroom events, which I helped to create with him several years ago) is a Budapest-based poet and journalist, who once agreed to have work up at this "blog". It's still there, as Exhibit A.

Now, he has written a savage attack on all blogs and bloggers, see below (and start about halfway down):

http://www.budapesttimes.hu/index.php?head=11&issue=84

I think he's wrong, obviously, but more than that, I think he's silly.

Blogs do inform fellow practitioners, and therefore serve some communitarian use. You also don't have to read them if you don't want to. And they are free. Surely three things in their favour.

It strikes me as the height of marvellous hypocrisy to bite the particular blog that "feeds" you as it were.

Go figure.

Comments

Jonathan Wonham said…

I agree with you Todd. He's missed the point, particularly in relation to poets. I read recently that the average "professional" poet earns £2000 a year. Goodness knows how anyone would survive on that.

The point is, there is no marketing of poetry, therefore poets have to market themselves. And what better than a blog? The idea that a blog attaches only other writers is not a problem because only other writers bother to buy poetry anyway (well, apart from that guy I met five years ago...)

As for biting the hand that feeds. Well, he has to write about something, doesn't he?

Fri Apr 21, 10:44:00 pm 2006

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