#161: I wrote this love song made of titles...
which has unexpectedly spawned a miniseries and a video game tie in...
This womanās been trying to follow me on Instagram for about a month now. The other two pictures are a bit too risquĆ© for this time on a Tuesday morning, so Iāll leave it to you to imagine why this lovely person seems to want to catch my attention. Needless to say, I donāt want to be followed by a āmodelā at present. Itās like the guaranteed ladies who follow anything I post on Twitter at present, all ālooking for companionshipā. Yeah, right.
Twitter X changed their Terms of Service at the end of May to allow pornography to officially appear on the site because itās easier than dealing with the bot problem, which is now so prolific that nearly every hashtag search I look has a link to hardcore video referenced. Thatās no mean feat, when all is said and done. Presumably, AI will shortly be using all this to create a new video game IP...
Maybe it already has.
I feel the need here to thank everyone who has signed up since the start of May for no other reason than this is the biggest influx of poetry-related followers Iāve had since this whole journey began. It has focused my mind hugely, and has made me look critically at how other poets and presses are approaching the online space as a means of communication, education and commerce.
When I started out my journey as a games journalist, the marketing and media training I was given was very clear on what success should look like. Followers were the key, they made and broke everything you did, and if I wasnāt getting X views per week on my work, Iād struggle. This then pushed you into the territories of safe and easy in terms of content. Iāve never been a fan of either.
Helpful and thoughtful have always seemed to me a better game plan.
Increasingly what I crave from interaction is being restricted: people close off comments to remove ātrolls and botsā which simultaneously removes all attempts to be helpful or offer support and advice. Interaction then becomes a series of statements about how people are unhappy and how everything could be better if people were more receptive, which shutting down interaction makes impossible.
This space hopes to have interactivity and communication at its heart. Iām not sure how thatās managed at this stage: asking for feedback is easy. Getting responses is a lot harder, and very much depends on both sides of the equation feeling comfortable. I can only assume that yesterdayās speech is as good as I think it is as nobody has told me otherwise.
I suspect Iāll know one way or another on Wednesday night :D
A small press that gave me a significant lift is shuttering for good this month. There is one last hurrah for Dreich, and a submission window opens tomorrow. Iāve written a poem especially for it, for no other reason than Iād like to say thank you for the thought and effort Jackās put into helping change peopleās lives over many years. I think the best small presses are the ones doing it for the craic first.
I also firmly believe that if your product is not enough to make people keep coming back for more, itās up to you to do better. It is a very fine line between legitimate beef and sour grapes. The fact remains however that if you want the very best selection of poetry to learn from you need to read everything, from the popular to the polarizing. If all you do is read what youāre told, youāll soon be frustrated.
The best lessons I have learnt about poetry have come from conflict.
The best forms of expression are the ones deeply rooted in your own personal satisfaction: however, as is the case for every artist, the only way to effectively break rules is to first learn every one that exists. Itās why the best creatives are the ones who donāt just see the world as it is and express that disparity accordingly. They are able to create reality that has a connection between theirs and truth.
How you do that can be as complex or simple as you like, but tending towards the simple really does pay dividends. It allows easier digestion and better retention too, and sometimes it is easier to live on a series of smaller meals than packing all your nutrition into fewer sittings. I want to use
as an example of this for no other reason than he gets the science behind why art matters.If I canāt get the point, then why am I bothering to read the work?
I write every morning as a means of rationalizing my world. Increasingly people read this for reasons that are not completely clear to me, so Iām going to start educating myself and asking questions a bit more going forward to try and work out where things should go in the future.
Todayās inaugural question therefore is this:
What matters most to you when reading a piece of work?
Do you need clarity, or entertainment? Is it education, or insight, or is there something else?
The comments section is standing by to record your thoughts <3
Thank you for the mention! I guess what matters to me is whether the voice feels honest. If the words are trite, and the arguments superfluous, it feels like the writer has not tried to plumb the depths of their being. It doesn't take very long to get a feeling of "been there, read that" and I'm attuned to that sense of boredom in me.