social media | A Layering of Perception

I’ll cut away from the April A to Z theme for a hmmer I’ve just had. Join me?

I read Fox Chase Review’s entry Poetry and Social Media:

“How does a well-crafted poem fit into social media? …poets write poetry because it is who they are and no matter what changes there are…the poet will always write.”

You don’t have to be a hermit to know how the social habit of publishing is seemingly counter to the cocoon of writing. I’ve asked myself similar questions and considered how reclusive the writing/publishing process was a hundred years ago compared with today. If your feet aren’t pounding it out to the public, it won’t fly.

Okay. I dragged my heels on creating a blog. What is one more web page out of millions? Who hasn’t said what there is to say in one format or another? (I am adept at talking myself out of just about any form of “public,” aren’t I?)

A few of my favorite poets plopped their poems right to the public online, in their blogs. My jaw hit the floor. I questioned existence as I knew it and wondered if we as a species could ever go back to non-instantaneous pleasure. The “I want it for free!” decades. Give it to them once and they don’t want to pay for it, which means seiving an ocean of practiced communication to gather pebbles of poetry.

More than a few conversations with writers and readers. All the same considerations of “will physical books disappear?” We’re still wringing our hands and trying things both ways.

You decide. No, really, you will decide with your dollars and participation.

I have switched from clicking private or friends-only on everything I post or email. If I have something to say, I must want to make sound.

Our words are finite. Our lives are finite. The days of capability dwindle. It is difficult to find your calling, which I haven’t, only after the primary skill it requires no longer functions well. Model making and needlework, those fine motor skills evaporate with arthritis and macular degeneration.

Three good friends routinely remind me: Whatever you have to give, you give it.

Writing anything well is serious work though the treatment of a subject and the intended response needn’t be bleached-bone still.

I hope not. If so, I’ve bored someone to death. Not much could be worse.

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