Kelli Russell Agodon's Blog, page 49
July 19, 2012
July 17, 2012
Confession Tuesday: Are Blogs Dead? Edition
Dear Reader,
I confess it's harder for me to write in the summer and maybe the sun has gone to my head, but I'm wondering -- Are blogs dead?
I ask this in that joking way, the way people ask "Is Poetry Dead?" Of course, it's not. Of course, there will always be blogs and bloggers, but have we moved past it?
Jeannine Hall Gailey used a term when talking about blogs, facebook, twitter that intrigued me. She said that more people may prefer easy connection without all the words. The terms she used were-- "long-form content" versus "short-form content."
Long-form content are blogs, articles, editorials.
Short-form content are Facebook status, Twitter, Pinterest.
I was intrigued as I hadn't thought about it.
Do people still read blogs? Are blogs needed? Does anyone still read my blog?
After our discussion, I wondered why I still have a blog and if it was still helpful, necessary, if anyone is reading and if it's worth it to keep it going.
I confess sometimes I feel as if I don't have anything more to say.
But maybe this is my summer mind, the one who likes to read clouds.
I'm not sure. But do you still read blogs as much as you used to?
I know I don't as much. But it's not a reflection on the blogs, but on my time.
I guess this makes me think about blogging and whether to continue. Right now, I'm leaning towards yes.
We'll see how it goes.
Right now, I'm going to keep this blog. But are we moving to shorter words/phrases to connect us?
Amen.
Kelli Russell Agodon
www.agodon.com
July 16, 2012
July 14, 2012
Brian Andreas Story People on Maintaining Control in Life...
If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.
~Brian Andreas, Story People
Kelli Russell Agodon
www.agodon.com
July 12, 2012
July 11, 2012
Incredible Book Recommendation for Poets: Poetry in Person
It is one of those books I'm going to be sorry about when I finish it. I will want to read more.
Basically, the book transcribes 25 years of cassette taped interviews from the most amazing poets talking to an audience of poets. Writers talking to writers.
It starts out with Maxine Kumin in 1973 and goes from there.
If you love interviews or hearing poets discuss their craft, struggles, fears, insecurities, creativity, passion, process...you will love this book. I cannot get enough of it!
Here's the Amazon Book Description:
“In the fall of 1970, at the New School in Greenwich Village, a new teacher posted a flyer on the wall,” begins Alexander Neubauer’s introduction to this remarkable book. “It read ‘Meet Poets and Poetry, with Pearl London and Guests.’” Few students responded. No one knew Pearl London, the daughter of M. Lincoln Schuster, cofounder of Simon & Schuster. But the seminar’s first guests turned out to be John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Robert Creely. Soon W. S. Merwin followed, then Mark Strand and Galway Kinnell.
London invited poets to bring their drafts to class, to discuss their work in progress and the details of vision and revision that brought a poem to its final version. From Maxine Kumin in 1973 to Eamon Grennan in 1996, including Amy Clampitt, Marilyn Hacker, Paul Muldoon, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, and U.S. poet laureates Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, Louise Glück, and Charles Simic, the book follows an extraordinary range of poets as they create their poems and offers numerous illustrations of the original drafts, which bring their processes to light. With James Merrill, London discusses autobiography and subterfuge; with Galway Kinnell, his influential notion that the new nature poem must include the city and not exclude man; with June Jordan, “Poem in Honor of South African Women” and the question of political poetry and its uses. Published here for the first time, the conversations are intimate, funny, irreverent, and deeply revealing. Many of the drafts under discussion—Robert Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas,” Edward Hirsch’s “Wild Gratitude,” Robert Pinsky’s “The Want Bone”—turned into seminal works in the poets’ careers.
There has never been a gathering like Poetry in Person, which brings us a wealth of understanding and unparalleled access to poets and their drafts, unraveling how a great poem is actually made.
Kelli Russell Agodon
www.agodon.com
July 10, 2012
Confession Tuesday
Dear Reader,
Summer has FINALLY hit in the Northwest. The weather is perfect! PERFECT! I can not get enough sunshine or beach time.
And when I say beach, I mean, water.
So let's just get to it and I'll explain. To the confessional--
I confess (and I've said this before) I have no idea how people who live in warm sunny climates get anything done or written.
When the weather becomes nice here, I drop email, internet, inside living, writing and anything else I can. All I do is 1) sit outside 2) SUP (stand-up paddleboarding) 3) eat ice cream and fruit and grilled shrimp
I do not write, care about writing or anything else that happens inside.
In fact, I confess I'm not even writing this on a Tuesday. I'm writing this on Sunday morning and scheduling it for today. I'm drinking coffee, wearing PJs and deciding when it will be best to paddle -- I'm a servant to the tides, you know.
~
I confess to keep my summer more open, I've started checking email on Monday and Friday morning only. I think I may keep this schedule into the fall.
Yes, I say this, like I'll only go on Facebook on Fridays, then the weather turns wet and yuck and I'm stuck inside looking for distractions and I'm reading Facebook statuses. But really, in my best life, this is my schedule.
~
I confess I constantly have to work on myself as a writer. I know all the things I shouldn't do-- distraction, procrastination, internet-surfing-- and still I find myself on Facebook liking someone's photo of their cat. I suck that way.
It reminds me of that car commercial where the daughter is thinking her parents have boring lives while she has 650-some friends on Facebook and spends all her time there-- "what, that is not a real puppy...it's too small to be a real puppy."
Summer reminds me that I must live outside the house, outside the box, the computer.
This is when I fill up, when I remember I am a body and not just a mind. When the birds are at their best, the sky is blue, and I am not locking myself indoors because I hate to leave the house.
Oh and here's the commercial for anyone who hasn't seen it.
Amen.
Kelli Russell Agodon
www.agodon.com
For my Writer Friends: Elvis Costello (& 2 amazing Charles & Di impersonators) video Everyday I Write The Book
You have no idea how much I love this guy--
Kelli Russell Agodon
www.agodon.com
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