Poet-bloggers Josh Corey and Mike Snider go back and forth on the problems of difficulty and dwindling audiences, the state of their art. I don't have much to add to this, except the observation that poet-blogging has added a powerful new dynamic to poetry's audience complex. Before I started reading these blogs, the only news I had of the contemporary poetry scene was from fiction MFAs, who told of an insular and irrelevant circle of academics-by-necessity. Would you have investigated further?
But then a few months ago I started running across poets and their blogs. These sites, which combine new poetry, criticism and explication, worldly commentary, other ingeniously weird stuff, and yes, the occasional cheerleading and self-promotion -- these sites make up one of the most challenging and productive blog communities on the web. For me they've been an avenue for exploraton, a place to rediscover poetry, difficult or not. I don't know whether they will significantly extend poetry's reach, but they've certainly had a profound effect on me. Cause for hope, maybe?
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