You can find me on Twitter now. Yes, you read that right. Me. On Twitter.
As many readers know, I have been a Twitter agnostic for years. Which are centuries in Internet time.
And yet, slowly, I have come around. It started with Goodreads, then Facebook. And today, I discovered enough interesting poets on Twitter (via a reprint of a list originally compiled by Collin Kelley) to reach a tipping point.
There’s not too much difference between Twitter and the IRC chatrooms I frequented in the early ’90s, except that Twitter takes advantage of two new developments: hypertext and mobile devices. But the concept of short, syndicated conversations is basically the same.
I am a different person now than when I was an adolescent trying on virtual personae through clever quips and emoticons. So, why Twitter now? I suppose I re-joined Twitter for the same reason I read and write poetry, and the same reason I started this blog: to be a part of the conversation–about poetry, and life, and what makes us human.
Can a medium so inherently distractable provide such insight? Can we get the news from Twitter, if not from poetry? Will the signal-to-noise ratio prove worthwhile? There is only one way to find out. Commence Twitter experiment number two.
“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.”
Possibly Related Posts:
6 Comments
Great questions, Robert…I’m still puzzling them out but find it useful enough to continue the experiment!
I look forward to seeing your tweets in my feed and maybe can help you next time you’re pondering the important questions re movies & miniature golf!
Funnily enough, I didn’t post my query about Star Trek v.s. The Soloist v.s. mini-golf on Twitter–just Facebook. Still figuring out what I want to broadcast to everyone, and what I just want Facebook friends to see. Look forward to seeing you on Twitter!
I feel much the same about twitter – too much of a distraction without value for me right now, but my aversion is lessening slowly.
As for poetry on Twitter, the haiku form fits very well into the limits if you’re into that (courtesy of my mom, who discovered that). I find that to be a very fitting style for the medium too, given its simple zen-like premise of the question “What are you doing right now?”
So far, the signal-to-noise ratio has been somewhat low, as compared to my investment of time. But I’m still keeping an open mind. The practice of reading poems online is a tricky one, for me, since the internet is a medium I am used to skimming, and taking in a poem requires a different mindset entirely. We shall see…
Welcome to the fold, Robert.
Thanks, Collin. Is there a secret handshake?