Twitterature Gives Fictional Characters Something to Write Home About

Apologies for the extended absence last week. As some of you know I was having significant computer issues and was unable to get to a substitute machine. However, the good news is that during the downtime I was able to complete the first podcast, and I should have it posted late this week if all goes well.

I've written about Twitter quite a lot on this blog. The microblogging site has quickly become the media darling of the tech set over the last year, and many creative people have initiated a number of interesting poetic projects within the Twitterverse.  In the interest of diversifying content, we haven't covered every single Twitter-and-poetry-related story that has come along. But there's one that's been receiving a lot of attention lately, and I simply can't pass it up.

I'm talking about Twitterature, a new collection published by Penguin Books comprised of the tweets of Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin. In short, what they've done is take classic literature and summarize it in 20 tweets of 140 characters each. This Yahoo! article from back in October gives a more detailed summary.

The tweets these guys have come up with are both humorous and, occasionally, insightful.

"60 Second Recap" Pipes Classic Literature Directly to Teens

At one point or another, even the most scholarly among us has turned to Cliffs or Spark Notes to summarize or clarify a class reading assignment. As good as these resources are at clearing up the confusing plots and characters of the books we've all been forced to read, they are too often resorted to out of laziness. Jenny Sawyer's new site, 60 Second Recap, has found a way to clarify books while making them more appealing to teens, not less.

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.]

iPod vs. Moleskine: False Dilemma?

I have two Moleskine notebooks which I guard and love like children. One is the classic pocket-size that I use for everyday notes, passing thoughts, or writing ideas. The other is a larger, journal-size version in which I keep my more formal creative writing. I wouldn’t trade either of them for the world: they are perfect for my purposes and their simple, elegant design is completely inspiring.

I could say the same for my iPod Touch. In the short time I’ve had it, it’s become an indispensable little gadget. It functions as an mp3 player, game console, remote control, netbook, and much more. As the Moleskine notebook is to writing, so is the iPod Touch (or iPhone) to portable computing.

Up until now, incorporating the two into my already gadget-ridden life hasn’t been a problem. That is, until Touch Poet came along. This fantastic little iPhone app has thrown my conception of what each of my devices is for out the window. Until then, the iPod was the information aggregator: it answered e-mails, looked up words, updated Twitter, and checked my calendar events. The Moleskines were the creativity engines: they expressed my individuality, explored my own brand of poetry, and generally helped me take a break from the hustle and bustle. But Touch Poet made things altogether different. This app allowed me to create little mini poems from words that were brought in from all corners of the internet. Take a look:

Granted, the phrases I have up there don’t really constitute poetry, but you get the idea. Words are generated from various news sources, your own e-mail accounts, the works of Shakespeare, Poe, and Kipling, and social bookmarking site Digg. You take those words and arrange them in any way you like. It’s a simple concept, and a very nice looking app. It even lets you post your final poem to Twitter, which is the most thoughtful feature.

So why did this throw my creative life into (slightly exaggerated) disarray? Because beyond the initial fun of it, I actually found Touch Poet to be very useful to my creative process. I started to use the app to find useful phrases that then got incorporated into my larger work. I wound up with two competing devices, both serving my creativity, to and from which I spent a great deal of my time transcribing.

As you know, oftentimes writing is about rhythm, both structured and unstructured. At first I found that the cacophony of these devices working against one another was interrupting this rhythm, and I felt a strong urge to get rid of one or the other. With time, though, and even as I’m writing this post, a new rhythm is emerging. There’s a great partnership to be had between the high tech and the low tech, and slowly but surely I’m learning to balance my time. Until then, I’ll keep writing with my iPod in one hand and my Moleskine in the other. After all, the important thing is that we all keep writing.