It's especially powerful considering that you are someone who walks the talk and definitely provides your platform to poets around the world. You're an inspiration, Arjan! 🙌
There’s so much I want to say in response to this post! The first is, YES, please open your series to others, that would work in the tritriplicata form. Be your own gatekeeper.
I’m cycling the boys to child care first, then want to write some thoughts on gatekeepers and shit work. But I’m glib, so this comes first.
This might lead me to a longer prose piece on the subject, but I'd to add to the above with the idea of "content versus art".
I think we've had content since the printing press. Maybe not the ease in which anyone can start a blog and spew forth printed language, but there's always been the need to express yourself. And if we don't know of a poet or writer or review that existed centuries ago, that's the course of history. Perhaps it didn't make it to the stage of "art". Maybe that's what you mean by the gatekeepers, who (I have to contradict you here) are not thinking so much of their audience but of a manifesto, a theory of what they call art.
With content there's an aspect of the glib and unpolished. There's an urgency to get it to the audience, not necessarily to cherish it as an artifact that will be suddenly revealed. A pamphlet written by a populist is different from The Communist Manifesto. Anderson and Heap publishing a serialized version of Ulysses is different from Beach (that glorious pornographer) sending it to press. And, for now, personal blogs of personal poetry is in danger of being glib and unpolished, because there is no gatekeeper.
This isn't a bad thing: in fact, it may just be the next step. I think the name of Patricia's Substack speaks wryly in that direction. I also like Austin Smith's "Notes on the Lyrhick" (https://austinsmith.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-lyric), which speaks toward Accidentalism (hi, Adora Williams: https://thecreativecatalyst.substack.com/). All recognize that we're in a place of content rather than form (art, the sublime), Adora might even take umbrage with me and say that it is, in fact, art, but I will disagree.
It is, however, the start of a revolution in literature: that journals will have to compete with subscribers buying subscriptions from individual writers (not mine, mine will always be free). That journals may be coming close to their anachronism because content might become art (or at least, every once in a while, have the smatterings of art). Maybe some of us will see it through to history, or just live in the ( extremely popular ) present. I think Trippleeffect is actually an important part of that (so keep doing this, please!), it's like the Ezra Pound of internet poetry.
As always, I've written this imperfectly. I'd like to propose a new Substack, Arjan, where you and I just write letters to each other and post them. That is college-level hubris, but at least it's nice hubris.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts here, dear James. I love that. Of course, I understand that polished essays are much easier to read and digest than unpolished open debate, but I personally have a strong liking for the latter. So thanks for your contribution.
I don't think I can subscribe to the idea of content vs art. I like how you connect the audience I wrote about with a manifesto or a theory of what art is. I think I also have one. One that is not a reflection of what I think is good, but of the fact that I believe the reader has the sole right to determine whether she thinks a text is a poem or not. As far as I am aware of, there is no universally agreed upon single definition of what poetry (or art for that matter) is. Surely, a reader or viewer or "consumer" of art in any form can outsource the determination to a gatekeeper, that selects on the basis of a theory or manifesto. I do believe these have a valuable role to play in that respect. However, I don't think they can make a universally true decision on what is good, and what isn't.
I like the idea of the Substack. We can always see where it goes.
Democratization it will be, eh? Okay then, let it be. I have no argument against the individual deciding their art.
Excepting one caveat, or perhaps pitfall. And that would be the integrity of the art to the artist. Would it be the same smile if Da Vinci had said, “that first one’s pretty good.” And the danger of online content (sans gatekeeper) is for an artist to assume the first draft is the best draft. Maybe it is? Likely it isn’t. That’s why (to repeat) I like Patricia’s and Austin’s method: they seem quite aware that glibness is part of this art we post online.
love this newsletter!
Loved the ideas you've shared here.
It's especially powerful considering that you are someone who walks the talk and definitely provides your platform to poets around the world. You're an inspiration, Arjan! 🙌
Thank you very much, my dear poet friend. Kind words. Very much appreciated!
There’s so much I want to say in response to this post! The first is, YES, please open your series to others, that would work in the tritriplicata form. Be your own gatekeeper.
I’m cycling the boys to child care first, then want to write some thoughts on gatekeepers and shit work. But I’m glib, so this comes first.
This might lead me to a longer prose piece on the subject, but I'd to add to the above with the idea of "content versus art".
I think we've had content since the printing press. Maybe not the ease in which anyone can start a blog and spew forth printed language, but there's always been the need to express yourself. And if we don't know of a poet or writer or review that existed centuries ago, that's the course of history. Perhaps it didn't make it to the stage of "art". Maybe that's what you mean by the gatekeepers, who (I have to contradict you here) are not thinking so much of their audience but of a manifesto, a theory of what they call art.
With content there's an aspect of the glib and unpolished. There's an urgency to get it to the audience, not necessarily to cherish it as an artifact that will be suddenly revealed. A pamphlet written by a populist is different from The Communist Manifesto. Anderson and Heap publishing a serialized version of Ulysses is different from Beach (that glorious pornographer) sending it to press. And, for now, personal blogs of personal poetry is in danger of being glib and unpolished, because there is no gatekeeper.
This isn't a bad thing: in fact, it may just be the next step. I think the name of Patricia's Substack speaks wryly in that direction. I also like Austin Smith's "Notes on the Lyrhick" (https://austinsmith.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-lyric), which speaks toward Accidentalism (hi, Adora Williams: https://thecreativecatalyst.substack.com/). All recognize that we're in a place of content rather than form (art, the sublime), Adora might even take umbrage with me and say that it is, in fact, art, but I will disagree.
It is, however, the start of a revolution in literature: that journals will have to compete with subscribers buying subscriptions from individual writers (not mine, mine will always be free). That journals may be coming close to their anachronism because content might become art (or at least, every once in a while, have the smatterings of art). Maybe some of us will see it through to history, or just live in the ( extremely popular ) present. I think Trippleeffect is actually an important part of that (so keep doing this, please!), it's like the Ezra Pound of internet poetry.
As always, I've written this imperfectly. I'd like to propose a new Substack, Arjan, where you and I just write letters to each other and post them. That is college-level hubris, but at least it's nice hubris.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts here, dear James. I love that. Of course, I understand that polished essays are much easier to read and digest than unpolished open debate, but I personally have a strong liking for the latter. So thanks for your contribution.
I don't think I can subscribe to the idea of content vs art. I like how you connect the audience I wrote about with a manifesto or a theory of what art is. I think I also have one. One that is not a reflection of what I think is good, but of the fact that I believe the reader has the sole right to determine whether she thinks a text is a poem or not. As far as I am aware of, there is no universally agreed upon single definition of what poetry (or art for that matter) is. Surely, a reader or viewer or "consumer" of art in any form can outsource the determination to a gatekeeper, that selects on the basis of a theory or manifesto. I do believe these have a valuable role to play in that respect. However, I don't think they can make a universally true decision on what is good, and what isn't.
I like the idea of the Substack. We can always see where it goes.
Democratization it will be, eh? Okay then, let it be. I have no argument against the individual deciding their art.
Excepting one caveat, or perhaps pitfall. And that would be the integrity of the art to the artist. Would it be the same smile if Da Vinci had said, “that first one’s pretty good.” And the danger of online content (sans gatekeeper) is for an artist to assume the first draft is the best draft. Maybe it is? Likely it isn’t. That’s why (to repeat) I like Patricia’s and Austin’s method: they seem quite aware that glibness is part of this art we post online.