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Enough is enough

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?

Comments

Anonymous saidā€¦
Todd,

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!
Donald Brown saidā€¦
Sorry to hear it, but I guess all things must pass, to quote a phrase. I can appreciate the somewhat demoralized tone in this post because DIY blogs are under-read and largely ignored. However, as one with a minor addiction to the form, I ask you: where can you sound-off as you please about whatever you please, with no editor over the shoulder, and no need to consider advertisers or anyone out to make a dime off your writing (including yourself). The penury of it all, I'd like to think, keeps it honest.

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.
EYEWEAR saidā€¦
Dear Tom and Donald,

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
JeFF Stumpo saidā€¦
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.
Mike Begnal saidā€¦
Todd -- You having 90 followers and 66 people voting in your poll sounds f***ing great to me! My blog has zero followers, but I do it anyway, because every once in a while someone leaves a well-considered comment, or honestly it's fun, or I realize no one cares but I dig my own posts anyway! I only post when I want to post, and don't worry about what people think. Why care? When they want to respond, they do. When they don't, oh well. It's the same with poetry-writing too -- most of the time there's no response, but that's not why we really do it, is it? If we're really poets we do it because we have to and want to. It's not for the gratification, because god/s know/s, there's going to be very little of that. Yeah, it's natural to get discouraged, but I would honestly say don't worry about it too much. Just do it because you want to do it, when you want to do it. If you really don't care anymore -- don't do it, I guess. Nobody's going to give us acclaim for posting a blog. We do it because we feel like it. Or don't. At least that's how it seems to me.
Sue Guiney saidā€¦
Todd, I do understand your frustration. Blogging takes a great deal of time. I know my own blog barely gets 30 readers, or so the stat counter says. But in blogging or in any of the writing we do, it is almost impossible to quantify the impact we have. God knows we're not in it for the money -- as Salt's troubles so clearly show. But I hope you can believe that you have had a far wider impact than you realize, not only via your blog (which I read whenever you post), but your own poetry, your Oxfam Series, your teaching, and whatever new ideas you take on in the future. And that's as much about who you are as about what you do.
James Midgley saidā€¦
I'm pretty sure the readers of this blog are much larger than numbers suggest; I tend to check back here every other day or so.

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.
Paul saidā€¦
Todd,

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
Rob saidā€¦
I think blogs that attract a high number of comments often do so because those bloggers leave plenty of comments on other blogs. The system feeds itself. I tend to be sparing in doing that, due to lack of time, even though I do read blogs. I get a pretty good readership, but not usually many comments. I guess the same is true for you, as you don't tend to comment around.

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.

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