One Year Later

I've been blogging now for a year, since June 2005.

In that time, I've:

written about poetry readings; books, films, art, albums and other cultural events I've enjoyed or thought worth bringing to wider attention (though how wide is an issue); given notice of obituaries of cultural figures of interest to me; expressed personal political convictions - normally cheering on Chavez and booing Republicans; began to add photos with most posts; tried to link to other good blogs and sites; featured dozens of poets, emerging and established, from around the world; a few times published my own poems; expressed ongoing concern with the quality and content of media discourse on poetry - and equal concern with the way poets of various stripes relate to each other, via poetics, publishing and reviews. More recently, I have begun to describe personal matters, relating to family, friends, and loved ones.

Of course, when I began, I had no idea that 7/7 was about to transform London living; at first, the terrible event made me want to quite blogging - then it made me want to go on.

I changed the name of the blog, from the T.S. Review, which seemed too pretentious, to Eyewear, which seemed more fun and irreverent. I am always open to changing it back, so do register your vote.

I also recently set up a system to track how many "visitors" I get. This was astonishing information. Apparently, in May I had over 2,000 such readers. On average, about 65 people a day come here - a small community, but a growing one. According to The Economist in their recent survey, any blog with 150 or so regular readers, such as Eyewear, constitutes a lively node of communication. So I am grateful to you, my faithful, invisible readers.

What do I think of blogging, a year later?

A few things:

- I am surprised how quickly it accrues - a post every day or so and a year later one has a book-sized compendium of musings and notes.

- I find it a vaguely irritating habit, like smoking (which I quit three years ago) - sinister in its addictive qualities but harmful in other ways, most especially in that it seems something of a time-consumer. Not quite a diary, not quite an urgent epistle, not quite a bottle that no sea can bear, it is a beast borne furiously forward on digital waves the human species is only still beginning to fathom. One of the great pleasures of writing a blog is that one can adopt any rhetorical tone or strategy one wishes, at random. It is still beyond the pale, and therefore somewhat free of frowning school marms and po-faced critics.

- I am pleased and startled by how quickly news travels on the blogosphere - several times my posts have set off small controversies quite unintended.

I'll continue, for now, but reserve the right to stop, at any time. Like that fellow in the Muldoon poem, Brownlee was it? - why I might leave is part of the enigma. Or was it in Larkin, where he might just give the toad blog up, and go off with a cutlass on the nut-strewn roads?

[note: the photo above, which I think is amazing, is from the great blog lemonhound - linked here - do check it out]