Even I managed to miss the fact that this blog is now over two years’ old. I made my first post on 3 September 2005. The anniversary slipped my mind, although I’d been thinking over summer whether I wanted to continue with it after the second year.
The answer is that I’m not sure. Surroundings has a good readership (for a poetry blog), not in the same league as Ron Silliman, but enough to make writing it feel more than a conversation with myself. But it takes time – writing time that I could use productively on poems and prose. It’s not just the writing of the blog, but reading other blogs that steals time.
On the other hand, blogging does have the effect of focusing my mind on poetry and this helps my own writing. It provides a measure of entertainment and interest for readers. There is also an element of self-publicity, of ‘creating an audience’, which is nothing to be sniffed at or to be ashamed of.
So I’m in two minds.
