Future of reading

I have received Free Lunch # 40, and as I always do with this publication, I turned first to Editor Ron Offen’s editorial. For Autumn 2008, Ron is explaining why he will never make Free Lunch an online publication. The title gives a clue: Poetry and the Web II (The Ephemeralization and Degradation of Poetry).

Are web publications ephemeral? Are their standards too low? Questions that only time will settle, I suppose. One of Ron’s arguments, I think may be a function of age. Those of us who grew up with books find them more comforting, easier on the eyes, easier on the concentration. But there may be a downside to linear English printed on the page. It may favor certain types of intelligence. That argument is also not one that I can win.

(There is something about this in Robert Pinksky’s interview in Rattle, but I don’t have that volume with me at the moment. I’ll come back to that later maybe. I think the question is more oriented toward the effect of texting on grammar.)

It is Offen’s final point that interests me here:

Finally, those fostering online poetry are apparently convinced that print is (or will soon will be) an obsolete medium. Considering the current demise of many newspapers and magazines, whose former readers are increasingly obtaining their news and information on television and online, this is a compelling argument. Yet studies also show that more and more books are being published and purchased in recent years. And what about the lines that form outside bookstores awaiting the first sales of books like those of the Harry Potter series? Also, did Billy Collins’ poetry books become bestpsellers because he was published so widely online? Moreover, even if such naysayers of print are right (which is highly doubtful), why would e-zine editors, who presumably care about the future of poetry, trust its future to a medium that is essentially anti-poetic? Why would they promote—to coin a word—the ephemeralization of the art?

While I’ll admit to being one who wants to see my work in print, Kathryn Greenhill, blogging at Librarians Matter, is not so sanguine about the future of the book, and she’s a little worried about the future of the library (that bastion of free speech). She asks What future the library? and suggests that those institutions would be wise to prepare for a bookless future. Via.

Like Ron Offen, I find the prospect of a bookless future bleak and can’t quite wrap my head around cuddling up with a good Kindle. Still, I’m beginning to think I’ve reached my fuddy-duddy years.

Does anybody remember the term fuddy-duddy?

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Addendum: Here is Diane Lockward on Ron Offen’s editorial:

Nevertheless, online journals are here and that’s just a fact. And not such an unpalatable one. There are things an online journal can do that a print one can’t: add lovely graphics, include links to other literary sites, correct mistakes. Some journals have added audio which is wonderful. I like reading the poem and then being able to listen to the poet read it aloud, especially if the poet lives somewhere far away from me. Now Offen makes it clear that he feels these additions detract from the poetry rather than add to it. I disagree.

The technical glitches that Offen cites as nasty possibilities�a hard drive crash; a bug; troubles with the hosting site, both technical and financial; the end of the journal and the disappearance of your work from the site�seem to me no worse or more worrisome than the possibility that a print journal will go out of business before your work is published (I’ve had that happen), that there will be delays in delivery (also had that problem, many times), that your work will be inadvertently omitted (don’t even let me get started on this), that your work will appear with typos that can’t be fixed and your bio with your name misspelled (again, don’t let me get started).

Read the whole post. Read Blogalicious, often (though she doesn’t often write about Offen.)