Wayside Poet Bloggers

Going through my blogroll -- my "Other Worthies" list down at the bottom of my right-hand gutter, many of which I hadn't clicked on since 2006 -- I found a number of poet bloggers who I used to link with quite actively have either cut or dimmed their lights. AJP Liszkiewicz, Ana Bozevic Bowling, Chris Lott, Dallas Marina, Erin Noteboom, Estaban Arrellano, Julie Carter*, and Gail Armstrong are among those who have all closed up shop or lie dormant. Jim Behrle, whose ongoing lampoon of American Pobiz reached splendid comedic highs, now -- is this deadpan joke, or accident? -- redirects us to some sacchrine commercial venture called americanpoetry.biz... Once central stations, poet bloggers who engaged us with a lot of flair, are now neglected way-stations: Nick Carbo, AD Thomas, Anthony Robinson.

Of course, all fun things pass. Has the poetic blogosphere become too crowded? Has the novelty worn off? Have the rigours of cyberslavery worn writers down? Clearly, all or any of the above. While the likes of George Murray, Zach Wells and Collin Kelley continue to blog vivaciously and Silliman ad-infinitum, I sense a growing ennui in po-blogosphere.

Gail Armstrong, in signing off for good, expresses a common sentiment:

I don’t suppose it even needs to be pointed out that my enthusiasm for this weblogging business has near fully waned.

We’ve had a good run but it’s no longer fun. Or useful. And I admit to a certain – perhaps misguided and no doubt ludicrously precocious – nostalgia for a once more intimate web, one with less of a noisy strip joint about it.

Gone, it seems, are those heady early days of freewheeling poetical discourse and debate. Gone the sense of discovery, of breaking frontiers in a new kind of community-building. So why do I keep this blog up? Well, I have a new book coming out that's exciting to post about. (Out of the woodwork, indeed.) I still enjoy the physical act of putting things up -- images, poems, the occasional mini-review. Writing here hones skills, keeps a vital (if diminishing -- let's say, flickering) sense of connection. Occasionally, real connections are made, and I still learn from others here. So I blog...

*I've since learned she blogs from this address. I also learned that her husband just died. I am deeply sorry.