Thanks for this Tim.

Your description of accessing poetry on the internet mirrors my own
experience. I have a desk top computer and do tend to browse or flip through
work thinking 'that's interesting I'll come back to it later', whereas if i
have a book, although i may buy it and leave it on the shelf for years or
months before reading if i find it of interest there will be a time when i
carry it around in my bag or my pocket for a couple of weeks and read it
everywhere - in the pub, on the train, while I'm eating breakfast etc. You
can't do that with poetry on the web; printouts just don't work. So there is
something about the quality of the experience. I wonder if others feel that.

You're also right about the sheer quantity of work encouraging that process
of flipping through really good work to get to what you hope might be
explosive work. I get greedy and want it all and defer the present pleasure
for a potential pleasure in the future.

The internet does seem a medium which could allow a variety of poetries to
peacefully coexist and interesting it's not turned out like that. Maybe the
answer is simply that the book has far more kudos in mainstream circles and
is still seen as the only serious way to publish poetry?

ian





>>Secondly, Ian, your questions are highly pertinent.
>
> >"What impact has the internet had on the publication and distribution of
>poetry? Do more people read more and different poetry?"<
>
>Anything I say re this is an educated guess, based on my own experience and
>listening to what others say.
>I would say that the internet's impact on the publication and distribution
>of
>poetry is no more and no less than its impact on everything else - in other
>words what is gained is lost at the same time - or, if you are one of those
>optimists, have it the other way round - same difference. Of course the
>details
>behind this are not going to be even, so in certain individual cases the
>impact
>would have been greater, for good or bad. The reasons for this 50-50 result
>are contained in the second part of Ian's question - do more people read
>more
>and different poetry? - because while it seems pretty certain that more
>people
>are bringing up things on their screen which they would not bother getting
>hold of without the internet this does not constitute the act of reading.
>So yes,
>they are seeing 'different' poetry, but what they are doing with this
>difference is as yet an unknown. A 'different' poem may just confirm a
>prejudice
>quicker etc. Reading is connected with desire but conditions of relative
>scarcity
>or glut breed different desires and such things are not uninfluenced by the
>mismatch between practicalities of access and the experienced texture -
>reading
>a poem on screen is not only different to reading it in print on the
>immediate
>level but is also different on the extended because a choice has to be
>made,
>and made quickly, about downloading or printing or whatever - and behind it
>you know there are a million other goodies waiting which could be better.
>Which
>kind of leads to Ian's second question...
>
> >"Does the internet, as a means of distribution of
>poetry, challenge ideas of regional, national and international poetries?"<
>
>I always hoped that it would, particularly with regard to that middle one,
>'national'. I have written before about my half-hearted hope, for example,
>that
>the internet would break the stranglehold of the mainstream on Brit poetry
>because it would bypass established channels of publication etc - I think
>it
>still says something like that on terriblework. But it was a half-hearted
>hope
>because i never shared the optimism re the positive changes that could be
>brought
>through this medium which in as many cases as it bypassed established
>channels could also reinforce them or even create new orthodoxies and power
>centres.
>Much of my disagreement with cris cheek was over matters such as these.
>
>The internet has been going for a while now and it does seem to be the case
>that the situation as regard the relationship, or non-relationship, between
>the
>mainstream and those of us who are enthused by a different poetry is the
>same
>as it ever was. If I am to be convinced that this is not the case then I am
>going to need more than the odd happy anecdote or individual opinion - I am
>going to need evidence of structural and ideological shifts that can show
>themselves in poems as well as in poetics.
>
>Cheers
>Tim A.
>
>
>
>

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