By the way, I have decided to end Eyewear, permanently, in the autumn of 2009, or sooner. I'll start scaling things back over the next few weeks, and have a total break June-September. I have a number of books I want to get reviewed, and poets to feature, mostly because I promised them I would, and because - why I do not know - I believe that poets should be helpful to one another, and help to build a community online, given the relative indifference the wider society has to their art.
I have found blogging exhausting, and, even though we are coming up on Eyewear's 4th birthday, increasingly empty. While I am pleased to have 90 followers, my recent poll indicated I have, in any week, only around 66 people willing to vote - and, lately, most posts get 1 or no comments. Blogging is, I think, changing. Less and less rare, it is now slightly old-hat. There are newer, abbreviated ways to instantly message, and, more and more, blogs that do get readers are slicker, better edited, and, even, professional; in fact, as print media has died, blogs and online magazines have really become the new default place for journalists to go. How can Eyewear compete, and why would I want to?
I am currently completing a PhD, and dealing with various sorrows. I have a career as a teacher, and a critic, to think of, as well: the new economy is grim, and time spent on blogs is time not paid for. In a saner, fairer world, four years of Eyewear would, I assume, be lauded, or appreciated, by more than a handful of loyal, intelligent and far-flung readers - I think it's been a model of both eccentric expression and engaged fun cultural reporting, open to others and never afraid to be controversial, but never cruelly so. I feel its going will leave a small hole in the civilised discourse on poetry in the UK - but not one other blogs and bloggers won't - and can't fill. I ask you, though, dear readers, one question - aside from being a Canadian with a strong sense of purpose and some vision - what did I do in British poetry, all these years - aside from try to discover new talent and encourage it?
I have found blogging exhausting, and, even though we are coming up on Eyewear's 4th birthday, increasingly empty. While I am pleased to have 90 followers, my recent poll indicated I have, in any week, only around 66 people willing to vote - and, lately, most posts get 1 or no comments. Blogging is, I think, changing. Less and less rare, it is now slightly old-hat. There are newer, abbreviated ways to instantly message, and, more and more, blogs that do get readers are slicker, better edited, and, even, professional; in fact, as print media has died, blogs and online magazines have really become the new default place for journalists to go. How can Eyewear compete, and why would I want to?
I am currently completing a PhD, and dealing with various sorrows. I have a career as a teacher, and a critic, to think of, as well: the new economy is grim, and time spent on blogs is time not paid for. In a saner, fairer world, four years of Eyewear would, I assume, be lauded, or appreciated, by more than a handful of loyal, intelligent and far-flung readers - I think it's been a model of both eccentric expression and engaged fun cultural reporting, open to others and never afraid to be controversial, but never cruelly so. I feel its going will leave a small hole in the civilised discourse on poetry in the UK - but not one other blogs and bloggers won't - and can't fill. I ask you, though, dear readers, one question - aside from being a Canadian with a strong sense of purpose and some vision - what did I do in British poetry, all these years - aside from try to discover new talent and encourage it?
Comments
I don't know what kind of statistics facility Blogspot provides, as I'm a Wordpress man, but I would be very surprised if the figures you quote there are truly representative of the popularity and profile of your blog. Speaking for myself, I read Eyewear almost every day - at least twice a week - and it's a pity you're choosing to end it. By all means, it's a decision you have to take, but don't take it because you think people don't read and appreciate it... they do!
I think you're right that blogs are changing, and certainly it's very difficult to solicit comments. God knows I have the same problem. I set up http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk as a blog when I last revamped it (Jan 09) and no-one (yes, no-one) has ever left a comment. But my visitor stats are pretty good. So there's not a direct correlation always between readers and comments.
I would say in your case that the way you write often doesn't provoke commentary the way - say - Katy E-B's does over at Baroque in Hackney. This is not a criticism, by the way.
Anyway, I'm sorry to see Eyewear go... and I hope perhaps to see a Selected Essays or somesuch at a later date!
Tom
PS: With regards to your previous post about your reading at Borders, are you confusing your profile and reputation with the general reception of poetry? I think you answer your own question about both Eyewear/blogging and being a poet - that is, it's marginal, eccentric, and thank God for it. (And by the way, I also believe in developing new audiences, as you do - I don't see these approaches as mutually exclusive...)... Over and out!
And I will add: thanks to finding Eyewear, I now own a copy of Seaway and will eventually review it online at New Haven Review, before Eyewear signs off, I promise.
I appreciate your posts. Thanks for that. I won't end Eyewear all at once, anyway. It'll go on summer hols in June, and then come back more slowly in the autumn. Depending on how my research and writing goes, it may keep on keeping on. Your comments remind me of why it is worth doing.
best
Todd
In a similar vein (or perhaps riff), I read Eyewear much as I'd read a newspaper column. I rarely have an expectation of responding to you, and I rarely get the vibe that you're in need of response. The posts tend to be well-crafted and, as Tom noted, not bristling with controversy (which is not to say you don't take stands on issues, but you're not pushing buttons as do many of the high-response sites). I read because it's a nice read, which is perhaps old-fashioned of me, but enjoyable nonetheless.
That said, I've always thought extended blogging somewhat harmful to one's own poetry -- it's yet another media influence exerting itself into what ought to be (initially at least) a very private space. So with any luck perhaps a slow-down here will result in a period of poetic fecundity for you. Good luck with it, however you decide to go forward.
I also read Eyewear a fair bit. I rarely comment. Blogs are hard work, and I do a lot less on mine these days. These things go in waves.
But I do notice a lot on your blog a frustration about not being given what you feel is your due. It's a pity. I know that feeling, and being given dues goes in waves too. But I think a key thing to be able to do is let go. It doesn't matter what poetry editors think, in the end. That's not why you do it. You do what you do because you have to, and if anyone notices it is a bonus. And after all, having a 'selected poems' volume out from a major publisher is more than most poets will ever achieve.
And in the end ... well, in the end, these concluding lines from W. S. Merwin's poem 'Berryman' always do it for me. I go back to them when I doubt what I do and why:
i had hardly begun to read
i asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't
you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write
I suspect most blogs have a shelf life. Mine certainly won't go on forever and I may end it sometime in 2010. Other priorities take over, new avenues open up, time gets swallowed, something has to give. Good blogs have value and are worth doing for a while, but there will also be a time to stop. Only you will know when that time has come for you.