Fluttering about Flaublog. Reminds me of little lame Pantaloon-man's query/comment about whether there is something substantial in the connection between the work & the life in considering poetry - whether poets "teach" by exemplary life, not only in their works (at least I think that was what JK was pondering at the time).

Steve "owes me $15" Evans is right that the sociability of blogging tends against the solitude needed for some kinds of thinking & writing. Didn't "Shirley Bean" leave off blogging for just that reason? ON T'OTHER HAND, blogging cain't be rudduced to critical expository pose.

Seems to me more like a curious wallow in the realities of office downtime communication, an interstice which allows for expanded creative acting-up or self-presentation. Thus the pleasant VARIETY of blahgpo acts. Which to my thinkin' circles around again to JK's question. Jordan, by the way, sounds almost Sillimanesque in his defense of blogging as political (see "tense/unheeded" comments of yesterday). But is poetry political? Damn straight - so's the Pope.

I tend to agree that the poetry & the poet are inseparable. This doesn't mean we have to delve with vulgar curiosity into the biographical mulch. I think all I'm saying is that the "public informality" of blogging reinforces the presence of poet In Persona qua poet. Words are darn pow'rful, as my Uncle Ned used to say on the porch. Many authors have a curiously impersonal approach to writing - even poets. For them literature is a form of channeling - the results vary depending on talent & scruples. Blogging in an interesting way combines power (of language) & informality (diaries, letters, conversation). In that combination lies the odd feeling of personal presence & immediacy which blogging provides.

I realize I'm rambling. I think whut I'ma tryin to say is that deep down I have a hunch that poetry is NOT channeling - either of accepted power-hegemonic social discourses (cultural or subcultural), or of exemplary classic models. & why not ?? because deep down the person & the word are indistinguishable. The vocation of the writer transmutes or fuses person & word. The poet stands with her or his word to the end of time & none other's - the rest is echo chamber, channeling, feedback, follow the signs please. & the informal immediacy of blogging perhaps reinforces that impression. It gets back to what I was theorizing way back in Jan or Feb about poetry versus prose as illustrated by poetic NOWNESS vs prose MIMESIS.

Either that, or blogging is just another kind of ego tripping. That too. Shorter Wanted Posters Wanted, Shorty.