If you spend your whole day on the computer, this is definitely something worth looking into. Though it's not a replacement for leisure reading, it's a great way to get through some of those reads you may have been putting off.
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
DailyLit Brings Books to Your E-mail Inbox
If you're like me, you spend a great deal of your day sifting through hundreds of tweets, blog posts, e-mails, and Facebook posts. In between, all of us manage to squeeze in a book or two over the course of the week, and if we're lucky, even a few poems. Wouldn't it be great if you could get some reading done while you're slogging through all those e-mails and RSS feeds? That's where innovative service DailyLit comes in.
As their helpful graphic above illustrates, DailyLit takes short stories and novels, cuts them into easily digestible pieces, and feeds them to you through RSS or e-mail. Many of the newer books require a small fee [usually around $7], but there are over 800 free books available. If you're already a regular Google Reader user, it seems like the RSS option is really the way to go. And the service even allows you to sign in with your Google, Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID account.
If you spend your whole day on the computer, this is definitely something worth looking into. Though it's not a replacement for leisure reading, it's a great way to get through some of those reads you may have been putting off.
If you spend your whole day on the computer, this is definitely something worth looking into. Though it's not a replacement for leisure reading, it's a great way to get through some of those reads you may have been putting off.
Castle in the Clouds: Read Write Poem Launches Social Network for Poets
Poets thrive in communities. Shakespeare had London's robust playwriting community; Fitzgerald had Hemingway and vice versa. Ginsberg had Kerouac and the other Beats. Even stodgy, gloomy Milton had Andrew Marvell. Though nothing can replace a close, personal friendship with someone who shares your craft, the internet provides us with many more opportunities to collaborate with fellow poets, and to create these kind of friendships.
Read Write Poem, a website that has been cultivating a community of poets for a quite a while, understands that interaction with other writers can be a poet's bread and butter. Since its inception, the site has been issuing weekly "challenges" that allow the community to work on similar projects at the same time. That alone made it a site worthy of recognition, but the Read Write Poem team wasn't content to stop there. This dedicated team, including Dana Guthrie Martin, Andre Tan, Dave Jarecki, Nathan Moore, and Deb Scott, has been working hard to turn Read Write Poem into a hotspot for poets on the web.
In a site redesign years in the making but just finalized two days ago, this relatively simple blog has become a full-fledged social network. With groups, forums, messages, and individual profile pages, Read Write Poem has overnight become a Facebook for poets, in the same way that the fairly popular Goodreads is a Facebook for readers. Already Read Write Poem is blossoming into a successful, active community. There are many available groups with discussions going on now. Since joining a couple days ago, I've found it to be a pretty welcoming atmosphere. If you're interesting in meeting and working with fellow poets, I highly recommend giving the site a try.
"But," you say, "I already have Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Goodreads! Do you really expect me to maintain another social network? All these other places have groups and resources for poetry lovers. Why do I need a specialized network?" Broad-based social networks are great for general discussions and finding people with shared interests. But a network with a specific focus can simply provide resources and in-depth conversation that a less-specialized community can't. Already the discussions on Read Write Poem delve deeper into poetics than any Facebook group I can think of.
Even if you feel overwhelmed by the social web, you'll find this site to be a good break from the madness, rather than an additional burden. Who knows, you may even find the Kerouac to your Ginsberg. And as poets, can we really afford to work alone?
[Also, feel free to seek me out on Read Write Poem here.]
In a site redesign years in the making but just finalized two days ago, this relatively simple blog has become a full-fledged social network. With groups, forums, messages, and individual profile pages, Read Write Poem has overnight become a Facebook for poets, in the same way that the fairly popular Goodreads is a Facebook for readers. Already Read Write Poem is blossoming into a successful, active community. There are many available groups with discussions going on now. Since joining a couple days ago, I've found it to be a pretty welcoming atmosphere. If you're interesting in meeting and working with fellow poets, I highly recommend giving the site a try.
"But," you say, "I already have Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Goodreads! Do you really expect me to maintain another social network? All these other places have groups and resources for poetry lovers. Why do I need a specialized network?" Broad-based social networks are great for general discussions and finding people with shared interests. But a network with a specific focus can simply provide resources and in-depth conversation that a less-specialized community can't. Already the discussions on Read Write Poem delve deeper into poetics than any Facebook group I can think of.
Even if you feel overwhelmed by the social web, you'll find this site to be a good break from the madness, rather than an additional burden. Who knows, you may even find the Kerouac to your Ginsberg. And as poets, can we really afford to work alone?
[Also, feel free to seek me out on Read Write Poem here.]
The Art of Leisure: Why the Outside World Thinks This Blog Is Useless
Society tends to scorn people, like poets and nerds, who they perceive as ignoring what's most important about life. In our culture, people who care about things like poetry, or new kinds of technology that's dubbed a "time-waster," are cast aside as somehow completely useless. As someone who blogs about both, I obviously don't believe that's true, but I do think it's interesting that these very different areas of interest share this same scorned quality.
There is, of course, another side to the coin. Plato expels the poets early in the Republic, but later he admits them again. He realizes that poetry can further the cause of justice after all. [It is, of course, much more complicated than that, but we'll have to reserve an in-depth discussion for another day.] Poetry can shed light on important social issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. It's why so many of the most important poets have come out of subgroups that are oppressed in one way or another. Poetry can be a way for the voiceless to speak.
Technology, too, can have an unforeseen effect. Long before any inkling of a business model, Twitter made, and is still making, a real difference in Iran during the turmoil surrounding its contested election. What we can learn from this is that the things which the larger world brands as useless often play a bigger, more important role, than anyone could have imagined.
People should be encouraged to pursue lines of thinking that have no apparent, immediate use, because often the best uses are unforeseen. It's the same argument that is made to promote scientific research that has no obvious utility. Experimental science, computer technology, poetry, space travel: these are all things that have arisen out of apparent uselessness, that we have done after more immediate needs have been met. And it is what we do after procuring food, shelter, and clothing that really defines us as humans. Like it or not, it's so-called leisure activities that make us extraordinary. And it's because these endeavors are just that: extra-ordinary.
What do you think? Am I comparing apples to oranges with poetry and science? Are the types scorn each comes under fundamentally different? Are these not, ultimately, leisure activities after all? Sound off in the comments, or feel free to drop me a reply on Twitter.
Of Travel, Lapses, and General Merriment
To start off I’d like to apologize for having taken such a long unexpected hiatus from blogging. Last Wednesday I left for Minneapolis to attend the Sigma Tau Delta Convention. In case you’ve never heard of it, Sigma Tau Delta is an honors society for English majors across the globe, but is mostly made up of American undergraduates. Anyway, I thought I was going to have more consistent access to the internet while I was there, and this wasn’t the case. So thanks to all who stopped by looking for articles and didn’t find them; I’ll resume my regular schedule after this post!
I don’t think of this as a space to share my personal experiences with you, but when they pertain to poetry I can’t help but fold it in. This conference is a gathering of students from all across the country, and in addition to scholarly papers they are permitted to submit and present original works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. I was accepted for an original fiction piece, and it was nice to be able to travel there and share some of my writing with the larger world.
Needless to say, I spent the better part of the week listening to a lot people read their work. I was instantly struck by how easily technology could have improved the experience. Sigma Tau Delta is generally a place for people on the brink, future literature scholars and creative writers who are just finishing their undergraduate degrees and represent the next wave of thinking and writing literature. The only whiff of technology I got the whole time was a rather unsuccessful proposal for a live-blogging program. There is no current evidence on the website that this blog even existed. If the literary world is to move into the 20th century, we must continue to embrace technology and the ways in which it can help us.
Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress are quick, easy ways to focus a large group of people on a single goal, but for some reason many at this particular conference seemed uneasy to try these approaches. I’m thinking mainly of the SXSW conference, where for the past three years Twitter has been responsible for main ebb and flow of events. Had they begun their blogging project sooner, we could have used the site as a way to familiarize ourselves with the pieces before the short readings. Questions to panelists could have been tweeted to a special account, making it possible to participate in several panels at once. And though I’m not a huge Facebook fan, a 2009 Conference group would have made it possible to meet people beforehand, and recognize them throughout the weekend. These are just a few of the ways that social networking can improve conference experiences. And in an area such as poetry, which thrives on collaboration, social experiences should be enhanced in any way possible.
Overall, the conference was wonderful. I discovered a beautiful new city, and I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow writers and thinkers, particularly the ones who I have gone to school with for years but never really gotten to know. I only think of all the other connections I could have made had more people there been willing to use the extraordinary tools that other groups of thinkers have already embraced.
I don’t think of this as a space to share my personal experiences with you, but when they pertain to poetry I can’t help but fold it in. This conference is a gathering of students from all across the country, and in addition to scholarly papers they are permitted to submit and present original works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. I was accepted for an original fiction piece, and it was nice to be able to travel there and share some of my writing with the larger world.
Needless to say, I spent the better part of the week listening to a lot people read their work. I was instantly struck by how easily technology could have improved the experience. Sigma Tau Delta is generally a place for people on the brink, future literature scholars and creative writers who are just finishing their undergraduate degrees and represent the next wave of thinking and writing literature. The only whiff of technology I got the whole time was a rather unsuccessful proposal for a live-blogging program. There is no current evidence on the website that this blog even existed. If the literary world is to move into the 20th century, we must continue to embrace technology and the ways in which it can help us.
Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress are quick, easy ways to focus a large group of people on a single goal, but for some reason many at this particular conference seemed uneasy to try these approaches. I’m thinking mainly of the SXSW conference, where for the past three years Twitter has been responsible for main ebb and flow of events. Had they begun their blogging project sooner, we could have used the site as a way to familiarize ourselves with the pieces before the short readings. Questions to panelists could have been tweeted to a special account, making it possible to participate in several panels at once. And though I’m not a huge Facebook fan, a 2009 Conference group would have made it possible to meet people beforehand, and recognize them throughout the weekend. These are just a few of the ways that social networking can improve conference experiences. And in an area such as poetry, which thrives on collaboration, social experiences should be enhanced in any way possible.
Overall, the conference was wonderful. I discovered a beautiful new city, and I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow writers and thinkers, particularly the ones who I have gone to school with for years but never really gotten to know. I only think of all the other connections I could have made had more people there been willing to use the extraordinary tools that other groups of thinkers have already embraced.
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