Time is speeding up

It seems to be a widely acknowledged fact that time has been speeding up over the last few years in current affairs and newsfeeds, especially in terms of how quickly one major story is replaced by another (often on puropose, so as to bury bad news quickly!).This effect has also been noticeable in the poetry world, meaning that every magazine issue, new collection or review has a shorter time in the sun.

However, the pandemic seems to have accelerated that process even more. Zoom launches pile up, one on top of another, while social media races ever more quickly onwards, spitting out promotional posts, mini-reviews and quotes as it goes. Attention spans appear to shrink on a daily basis; books sink without trace. 

In normal circumstances, a collection would still be very much alive six months after coming out. Right now, I've spotted several friends bemoaning the fact that their 2020 publications have already vanished from view.

In this context, it's important to pause, take a deep breath and keep subscribing to print-based journals with a greater time lag and thus a longer life, while also forcing ourselves to read more substantial texts online such as essays and blog reviews instead of scrolling through Twitter. Poets will thank us for doing so, while in purely selfish terms we won't miss out on stuff that would otherwise pass us by. Most of all, we might slow down and actually take the time to snaffle a poem properly, read it, re-read it and read it again...

Twitter and Facebook for poetry blogs

Now that Rogue Strands has reached the figure of 2,000 followers on Twitter (click here to join the happy throng!), it's a good time to reflect on how Twitter and Facebook interact with poetry blogs in general and specifically with this one.

First things first: I don't see social media in isolation. Instead, I make use of them as a means by which my posts on Rogue Strands might reach the greatest number of potential interested parties and readers. In other words, Twitter and Facebook help to spread the word.

Of course, transience is inevitable these days. Twitter is certainly faster-moving than Facebook, which lends it extra dynamism but also means that more stuff slips under the radar and disappears into the flow of information. Facebook, meanwhile, seems to have greater scope for discussion. On the other hand, one growing problem is that any debate of a blog post now often takes place via a comments thread on Facebook. The afore-mentioned thread then rapidly loses any connection with the post in question if and when readers go back to it a few months later.

Nevertheless, Rogue Strands' constant growth is in no doubt partly down to interaction with social media, viewing them as a beneficial tool rather than a threat or even an alternative. A quick glance at my blog stats shows that clicks through from Twitter and Facebook have trebled over the past couple of years. The latter is inevitably more slow-burning after a post is published, while the former is more immediate. All this is proof that poetry blogs are far from obsolete. They simply need to adapt to the ever-shifting virtual world around them.

Writer and poet

When I first joined Twitter at the beginning of this year, I was immediately struck by the way people try to describe themselves in a few words. One term that crops up on a regular basis is "writer and poet". Well, I'm sorry, but this just sounds wrong! A poet is a writer. The latter is the generic term in which we'd include the former. Of course, I'm being slightly pedantic: I know full well that users mean they write prose as well as poetry, but my question is why they phrase their description in such a way.

One possibility is that I'm over-interpreting things, and the explanation is simply that Twitter lends itself to abbreviation. On the other hand, I do have the feeling that people sometimes view verse as a separate entity to be kept apart from all other writing. As Twitter shows, even poets themselves can end up falling into this trap.