An Imperfect Medium

 
I am in the process of adding a number of poems to the site (see ORIGINAL POETRY on the sidebar), and in doing so I realize just how imperfect the blog format is as a showcase for these living, interactive works. Perhaps this is the case with poetry in any electronic format; especially those of us who write poetry expect our readers to slow down over some lines, we imagine the reader who may fondly reread a line here or there, the reader who might finish a poem and sit back in their (preferably rocking) chair, pages parsed between fingers, and close their eyes for a moment of reflection as it all settles out, in clarity, in recognition, or at least (we often delude ourselves) in pleasant befuddlement.

The electronic format, specifically designed for quicker clicking through, is hardly conducive to the idyll I just painted. Especially here, where it is all to easy to scroll down the list with the tap of a finger, as opposed to actually turning pages between two hands in a quiet, unplugged reading space. Here the poems fall one after another in list form, in what seems to me an unfortunate removal from the character and tone of individual works making up a whole, where one page turns on the next, a poem horizontally cushions another poem, two poems lay in certain attitude on their respective pages and all this pleases the poet very much. And yet I can think of no better way (certainly not free, courtesy of Blogger) to circulate my poems today and ensure that they are in fact living, that they do interact with as many as possible, even that people I don't know might read them and add something to my own consideration of them.

So here they are, a number of older works, some more recent, a good many sent off to various publications and writing contests (all in good time, all in good time) and most in the hands, at some point already, of good friends and family who have read them, commented on them, occasionally cringed at them and on the whole have offered them back to me in better shape for the testing. As always, thank you for reading.