some good points, but too assertively overgeneralized
Reader comment on: The Scorn of the Literary Blog

Submitted by Reginald Shepherd, Jun 13, 2007 19:11

Dear Mr. Kirsch,

While I agree with many of the points that you make in your article on literary blogs, and have recently posted a piece on my own blog regarding the petty viciousness and intellectual irresponsibility that too often pass for discourse in the world of poetry blogs (the corner of the blog universe with which I am most familiar), I disagree with your sweeping assertion that "the blog form... is not suited to writing about literature." I also take issue with your assertion that "no blogger...even wants to achieve" "scope, complexity, and authority," though you do somewhat qualify it with the phrase "that I know." Perhaps you simply do not know the right bloggers.

While most people who start blogs do indeed think of themselves (not always justifiably) as outsiders, and nurse resentments of a sometimes frightening intensity toward what they see as the monolithic and exclusionary literary world that refuses to recognize their brilliance, that is not the sum of the world of literary blogs. I am a poet who has published five books with the University of Pittsburgh Press, edited a poetry anthology with the University of Iowa Press, and has a book of literary essays forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press. Unlike most bloggers, I do not need my blog as an outlet for my writings. I began my blog both in order to reach a wider (or just a different) audience for my work (I am not ashamed to admit that self-promotion was an aim) and also to provide another forum for my critical thinking. In fact, it has prompted me to write several essays I would probably not otherwise has written. It has also put me in fruitful contact with published writers across the country and around the world whom otherwise I would never have known, even virtually. I do not post every day or even necessarily every week, and I post carefully written, carefully considered essays, primarily on poetry and poetics, but also on other topics I find of interest and/or importance. My blog is very much not merely a "miscellany of observations, opinions, and links," though such things will be found there. I treat my blog as a venue for my writing not different in kind than any other, though the immediacy and extent of response (usually, but not always, a good thing) is distinctly different.

If you are interested, my blog can be found at http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com. If you choose to take a look, I think that you will see what I mean.

I write this not simply to promote myself but to make sure that you are aware that there are some literary blogs (or at least poetry blogs--I'm not familiar with the book review blogs to which you refer) which do not fit the model that you perhaps too blithely apply to all such online endeavors. Other authors of blogs which, while they include diaristic and occasional elements that I do not and would not include in mine, do engage in serious intellectual discussion include Robert Archambeau, Jasper Bernes, Joshua Corey, John Gallaher, Paul Hoover, K. Silem Mohammad, and (though he is often infuriating in his seemingly deliberate unfairness and rancor toward writers not in his club, and does often post nothing but often misleadingly labeled links) Ron Silliman. All of these individuals are published poets, most with more than one book.

"The blog form" does not dictate the content or the shape of the materials it contains. It is just a vehicle, to be steered in whatever direction its author chooses. While most bloggers do treat their blogs as private diaries (despite the fact that they are on public display), there is nothing about the blog as a medium that allows only for "bitesized commentary," nor can I see any reason for assuming that there is.

I just wanted you to be aware that there are more and different poetry blogs than you might have known of, and that you may have painted your picture with too broad a brush.

all best,

Reginald Shepherd

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
As is with all high minded writers......... published writers that is........officially published in a book or newspaper writers that is.............. [MORE]	cheyanne	Aug 10, 2007 16:47
Kirsch has his own blog set up within six months. He's right about some things, and wrong about a lot.... [MORE]	Levari	Jul 5, 2007 16:42
As print & online media continue to merge & mutate, it becomes increasingly difficult to make value judgements grounded on... [MORE]	Henry Gould	Jun 29, 2007 08:31
Re: ethics. There are none insofar as the publishing world goes. Reviews are de facto blurb factories. And people will read... [MORE]	Dan Schneider	Jun 27, 2007 08:23
Over the last two years, I have read and enjoyed many blogs but all of them on and off, the... [MORE]	Anirudh Karnick	Jun 27, 2007 08:00
What about the shills at Amazon booksellers? What category do they inhabit? There is number one reviewer, Harriet Klausner, whose... [MORE]	Barbara Delaney	Jun 19, 2007 20:34
Al the squabbling between bloggers and journalists - or in this case critics - obscures the real issue, which is... [MORE]	Ms Baroque	Jun 16, 2007 19:32
↔ Perhaps I am just quibbling, but I find a number of reviews in the London Review of Books tedious, overly... [MORE]	Anirudh Karnick	Jun 27, 2007 08:11
↔ A spirited debate has been raging over the bookblog, a medium soundly denounced by many literary critics, who condemn bookblogs... [MORE]	Bibliolatrist	Jun 16, 2007 14:07
↔ Although I have to agree that the analysis, especially the part about the length and language of blogs, can be... [MORE]	Marc André Bélanger	Jun 15, 2007 12:41
↔ I do not know what blogs Mr. Kirsch has been reading, but if he were to look around a little... [MORE]	Robert Archambeau	Jun 14, 2007 17:07
↔ Kirsch states that bloggers are upset with criticism of their blogs, while the articles that have appeared recently have been... [MORE]	harvey	Jun 14, 2007 14:24
↔ It's interesting that many any of the commentators who complain that Mr. Kirsch generalizes also generalize by not providing links... [MORE]	Bill	Jun 14, 2007 13:13
↔ I really don't accept your thesis that blogging provides bite-sized reviewing; if anything blog reviews have lengthier reviews than what... [MORE]	Robert Nagle	Jun 14, 2007 12:23
↔ Unfortunately the newspaper book reviewers have to come to terms with the fact that print journallism is struggling to stay... [MORE]	Gerry Young	Jun 14, 2007 10:52
↔ I don't think we should confuse "reviews" with "literary criticism". Reviews run from the small town weekly up to the... [MORE]	rpm	Jun 14, 2007 10:19
↔ "Those who can, do, and those who can't, blog?" Cute as hell, but also stupid as hell. Plenty of "real"... [MORE]	Kelley Dupuis	Jun 14, 2007 08:38
↔ As a British reviewer, writer & blogger I enjoyed this article very much. I agree with a lot that you... [MORE]	PD Smith	Jun 14, 2007 07:14
↔ Although I agree that there could be more book reviews available (especially as an LA Times reader disgusted by the... [MORE]	Katya Johann	Jun 14, 2007 02:28
↔ Yet another 'the internet is bad for books' rant (print = good, internet = bad) without evidence or an understanding... [MORE]	Duncan	Jun 14, 2007 00:19
↔ Among the many oversights in this piece, Mr.Kirsch, let me point out three: "Often isolated and inexperienced, usually longing to break... [MORE]	Chandrahas Choudhury	Jun 14, 2007 00:14
↔ Literally, a person can post whatever they want to on a blog. Someone who blogs in not infected with a... [MORE]	Justin Dobbs	Jun 13, 2007 21:25
↔ In fact, despite what the bloggers themselves believe, the future of literary culture does not lie with blogs — or... [MORE]	Tammy Everts	Jun 13, 2007 19:20
↔ Dear Mr. Kirsch, While I agree with many of the points that you make in your article on literary blogs, and...	Reginald Shepherd	Jun 13, 2007 19:11
↔ "The blog form, that miscellany of observations, opinions, and links, is not well-suited to writing about literature..." Adam Kirsch's spurious rhetorical... [MORE]	Steven Augustine	Jun 13, 2007 15:11
↔ Don't get around much, do you, Kirsch? I won't trouble you with links to the many worthwhile blogs devoted to... [MORE]	Mark J. McPherson	Jun 13, 2007 15:10
↔ Oddly enough, I found the link to this article on a literary blog. While I agree that perhaps literary blogging... [MORE]	Jessica	Jun 13, 2007 14:28
↔ Dear CR Beha, So, using the "I know it when I see it" approach to what constitutes a blog and what... [MORE]	Jonny Diamond	Jun 13, 2007 14:10
↔ I've heard these arguments before. So, only print reviewers are capable of an intellectual discourse on literature? If bloggers are so... [MORE]	Wendy	Jun 13, 2007 12:57
↔ Iam leading publisher from India. My experience is very very bad , most leading newspaper of India stoped to review... [MORE]	Ramesh Raghuvanshi	Jun 13, 2007 11:37
↔ Good literary criticism is a highly complex form of civilized discourse, and is generally not to be found in blogs.... [MORE]	Tom	Jun 13, 2007 11:15
↔ As is oversimplification, particularly in the assumption that 'bloggers' and your rarefied 'professional writers' are in any way separate camps.... [MORE]	Matt	Jun 13, 2007 10:17
↔ If the "literary" bloggers represent a dead end, the fact that their blogs are filled with the stones of ridicule,... [MORE]	Tim Barrus	Jun 13, 2007 10:01
↔ Literary criticism is only worth having if it at least strives to be literary in its own right, with a... [MORE]	Pamela	Jun 13, 2007 09:22
↔ Bloggers are essentially tastemakers, not reviewers. Bloggers' book commentary can be capsulized as, "I like this, I don't like that,... [MORE]	Richard S. Wheeler	Jun 13, 2007 08:54
↔ Precisely because "literature is not news the way politics is news" (though I think a lot of people would consider... [MORE]	Rohan Maitzen	Jun 13, 2007 08:50
↔ Mr Kirsch is a thoughful, useful and reliable commentator on books but alas his media overview is less than that.... [MORE]	Robert Birnbaum	Jun 13, 2007 08:34
↔	G. Roberts	Jun 13, 2007 08:24
↔ Adam Kirsch mixes up two (or more) separate issues. Given that bloggers can in no way be blamed for the... [MORE]	R Campbell	Jun 13, 2007 07:33
↔ One obviously can say more in five thousand words than one can in fifty. However one can also create a work... [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	Jun 13, 2007 05:13
↔ ↔ Shalom Freedman is himself a case in point! I have read many of Shalom Freedman's reviews on Amazon.com over the... [MORE]	Randy Deutsch	Jun 13, 2007 23:41
↔ ↔ That this is a blog...right? Perhaps this appears in print somewhere, but I am reading it online, and can comment on... [MORE]	John	Jun 13, 2007 02:04
↔ ↔ ↔ Adam Kirsch denies that literature is like news. However: "Literature is news that stays news." Ezra Pound, "ABC of Reading" [1934] chapter... [MORE]	Jonathan Vos Post	Jun 13, 2007 12:09
↔ ↔ ↔ ↔ An article that is published online and made available for comments does not a blog make. The distinction isn't just... [MORE]	CR Beha	Jun 13, 2007 12:12
↔ ↔ ↔ ↔ ↔ However, Kirsch is casting aspersion on all blogs when, as you say, he is referring to a handful of them.... [MORE]	John	Jun 13, 2007 13:45
↔ ↔ ↔ ↔ ↔	Abner Furd	Jun 12, 2007 18:48