Weblogs and poetry

Today, while discussing a project with my partner, we spoke of a world that is not created by imaginings, but by solid, tangible bric-a-brac and realism. In that, we branched off our discussion into weblogs (Sparked by a glance at a newspaper with a feature on blogs) and the voyeuer's playground. From my own surfing of blogs, I noticed that blogs with photos, artworks and even personal, pedestrian details of the writer's life generate a huge following from friends and strangers alike. One could of course argue that the blog circles are inbred and revolve around a community of people who specialise in patting each other on the back, or taking turns in writing comments on each other's blog, which is true with at least 70% of the blogs you see around, there are many worthy ones started out by individuals that have attracted the attention of new readers and popular following for their content and aesthetics, as opposed to rantings by kids (and adults) about their life, their activities (which are often repetitiously similar) with friends, their incessant partying, getting laid, shopping, bingeing (on food and alcohol) etc etc. Weblogs have been touted as the latest lifestyle gateway, with thousands of them popping all over cyberspace, started by individuals who often have little idea as to what they want to blog, and thus left blank or abandoned after a few inane postings. The question is, should one blog even when one has nothing new to add other than attracting the attention of would-be-stalkers and voyeurs or bored inviduals who surf through easy-to-read blogs out of lack of things to do (or imagination), or should it be limited to individuals who are empowered and who have something actually worth sharing. But then, who is to determine such lines anyway? Arguably, reading weblogs of these many varied individuals sometimes offer a disturbing insight into the cultural, political and ethical precepts of the global, affluent community (they are the ones with the luxury to blog).

On a different note, I read a rather insightful article (interview actually) on an artistic development of a poet which I would like to share with you. While it might not hit you the same way as it did me, it would still make insightful reads to those wanna-be poets out there like myself.
Interview with James Reidel

I was just looking through two Malaysian books (in between reading up on cognitive science, something which I will discuss in later blogs). One is a bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English compiled by Malachi Edwin Vethamani. Unfortunately, this book merely documents a bibliography of works produced by Malaysians in the last century and hence did not add in new works by younger and newer writers. It is also a sad tribute to the state of publishing in Malaysia, especially of English Language publishing, with very few quality works, and most of which have never reached an international audience, with the exception of a notable few like Shirley Lim. Even then, she was never quite a household name. The other book is Petals of Hibiscus, edited by Mohammad A. Quayam, Rosli Talif, and Noritah Omar. While it considers itself to provide a representative anthology of Malaysian Literature in English, which it did succeed in doing to the fair degree, it suffers almost similar fate as the previous bibliographic compilation, which is a lack of quality writings. Despite a stable of talented writers, something is keeping the Malaysian writers from moving into greater limelight and even maturity in their works. Even the few gems here and there speak of a potential that has never quite been reached.


If anyone (especially Malaysian writers) have any thoughts on these, do post your comments. We could perhaps even start a new thread of discussion.