 They're Everywhere... Blogs, Zines, And The Zeitgeist .................................................................................................................. ..................................... The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation One day, I believe we'll look back on the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the twenty first, and label it, "The Age of Self Promotion & Exhibitionism Via The World Wide Web". I've been an internet user for six years, and in that time I've seen a proliferation of message boards geared to online writing, and I've watched a host of poetry sites eventually spin off into what's become a veritable cattle call of online ezines- and since the dawn of the newest phase- 'blogging'- there's more poetry than one could ever read or hope to read; so much so that when a new one is announced and editiors begin to troll writing groups looking for submissions, the only thing I feel is a kind of boredom. I shrug and say, so what? Truth is, anyone with ambition can latch on to some available space on the web- much of it free- and just declare a new ezine- and that's pretty much what I did with Blue House at a time when very few had the moxie to just jump in. Oh, there were the scholarly zines- those tried and true "feather in your cap" sort of places where people put forth great effort to get an acceptance email, and there were plenty of 'underground' sites that thumbed noses at the establishment, but very, very few - if any - where someone simply thought about it and said, "hey, I can do that". This little zine for instance, which has chugged along for four years and is about to begin it's fifth, started as a thank you to poets who'd contributed at the Orphaned Poetry board. It began as a showcase to give those writers a sense of accomplishment every other month and with time, I began to receive emails from folks who wanted to know how they could submit- so it grew. I included an art site link to give additional interest, as well as a topical editorial written by yours truly, and I believe most sites have these now. Blue House has maintained its basic 'look' since the beginning and I have no grandiose illusions that this is in any way a stepping stone to bigger and better things: it is exposure, merely that. An act of gratitude to those who kindly submit month after month, and is, in it's own way, a family of poets, and I have no intention of ever changing its simple approach to showcasing writers and offering some bi-monthly interesting poems. What I've observed in the crop of zines that spring forth every month, is a certain arrogance in their slickness and format- zines that hint at their own implied importance in the literary world- and I say, look: if you have affiliation with a university- if you are an offshoot of an established print magazine with a long and tested degree of excellence, then you may deign yourself a formidable presence in the writing community; otherwise, what's being done is more or less what I do here. A creative person has an idea and others contribute to that; then someone with skill at html, or versed in web site construction, makes a cradle to rock it. So VIVA LA EZINE~ it's part of the zeitgeist- and VIVA LA BLOG, they are signs of the times. In this 'look at me' age, where people seem to love testing borders and limits, plenty are out there that include poetry so exposed- pictures, artwork, personal confessions so raw--- that one hesitates to call them anything but pure exhibitionism, but that is the price of absolute freedom on the web, and honestly- though I wouldn't want to see it disappear, I hate to see its influence spreading but pendulums swing, and hopefully people will grow tired of that very tiresome extreme. At the end of the twentieth century and in the nascency of this new one, folks know how to be seen, read, and listened to- and I say terrific. Just please- don't think you are all contenders for the next Pushcart or Pulitzer: that just ain't so. We're providing entertainment, and if we're lucky, some inspired moments, but the truth is we're all just doing what's being done at this point in history: we're putting it out there. We're responding to the zeitgeist. Simple as that. Main Page |
