“I rhyme / To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”
Wired Magazine‘s Paul Boutin recently declared personal blogging dead. Soon after, The Atlantic‘s Andrew Sullivan extolled the endurance of blogging’s “human brand” in a postmodern world of words. Me? I just keep writing. But why?
In “Personal Helicon” Seamus Heaney rhapsodizes on his boyhood love of wells, then concludes that writing poetry has become a sublimation of this love of the messy, muddy darkness no longer accepted in adulthood. I, too, write–both poems and blog posts–to create reflection in the dark, and to delight in the mess.
I did not start as a poetry blogger, but rather converted my existing site from a static collection of all-about-me pages into the chronological format of a blog. I did so around the time I became a freelance technology writer and consultant. It became a great outlet for me to float my nascent technical ideas before a global audience, and I soon found my blog posts widely re-syndicated.
This was during the heyday of personal blogging. Boutin now sees this golden age as having been pulled apart by two forces: the major news sources catching on, and dominating the market, and social networking sites like Facebook providing an alternative outlet for those seeking self-expression and a social community of peers online.
But my blog isn’t about monetizing my writing. Otherwise, I would still be mostly writing about technology. And, although I joined Facebook some time ago, social networking messages and status updates have by no means supplanted my writing here.
I never set out to write about poetry, or about grief for that matter. But by following the thread of my thoughts through the thread of my life, I seem to have touched upon a wide range of subjects, and to have built new thoughts upon past ruminations. In doing so, I feel I have also actually begun to build up a greater understanding of my self, and of how best to share that self with others. Far beyond “self-expression,” blogging for me represents a means to see myself in Heaney’s well, to gaze down through layers of history, into the dark.
For those who are afraid of the dark, perhaps it is true that many of the rewards of blogging’s prime have withered, and with it a certain breed of personal blogging has died. For the rest of us, I say: personal blogging is dead; long live personal blogging!
Brian Salchert
Thanks for the lift. I’m in need of one.
Couldn’t help but notice “Thesis” and so
I went there. I was at Iowa (1965-67)
where George Starbuck was the Poetry Workshop’s head and my mentor my first year, a year that didn’t go well; but instead of sending me home, he proposed a challenge. I accepted it. The second year Marvin Bell was my mentor. It may be he’s disappointed in me now,
but I did well enough to make it through,
and I am thankful for the guidance and the experiences I had; and that some years later Mr. Bell made it possible for me to take a class at UF under Donald Justice.
Collin Kelley
I rate Boutin’s column right up there with all those wonks who keep saying poetry is dead. I use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and working on some YouTube stuff, but my blog is my main website and it’s getting enough attention and views to satisfy me, so Boutin can kiss my buttons.
Kurt
Personal blogging IS dead, but I just can’t stop doing it.
In an effort to reduce my Internet presence and rejoin the outside world (which I believe still has the superior interactions), I unjoined Facebook and other SN sites – now I have just the blog.
Robert
Nice to “see” you again, Brian. I recall you introduced me to the term “performatism” as an alternative to “post-postmodernism.”
I am not actually at Iowa, and neither is Mr. Bell anymore. In his “retirement” he teaches at a low-residency format MFA program at Pacific University. I have had the privilege of working with him by correspondence for a full year now, and spending time with him during the in-person residencies. He seems to have genuine affection for all of his past students and, more than anything, seems delighted to be in the game–a quality I find inspiring. Like you, I am glad to be making it through, and am sure I will be unpacking my MFA experience for years to come.
Robert
Or, in French, “Baisez mes bouton, Mssr. Boutin.” My wife helped me translate.
Robert
If blogging is dead, and we keep doing it, does that make us undead?
art predator
Gaping Void’s Hugh McLeod doodled a cartoon at the big blogging conference in Amsterdam a few weeks ago; it’s on my blog. It says, “Blogs aren’t dead, people are.”
You can see at the bottom of this post:
http://artpredator.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/blog-tips-2-conferences-2-continents/
Robert
Love it!
Kyle Howard
Perhaps the blogging goldrush is dead. Certainly the easy brand of pseudo-celebrity that could once be attained simply by having a blog and publishing often is dead. But blogs are still one of the easiest forms of mass self-expression, and because of that, I don’t anticipate the age of the blog dying anytime soon.
Pearl
ooh, I’m a zombie and I didn’t even feel the bite.