Literature Blogs and Videos: An End to Excess

Can we make a collective literature slash poetics blog new rule? Namely: only twenty percent (and I think this is being pretty generous) of your blog's content may consist of embedded videos on or about or of writers and poets.

This video content on lit blogs phenomenon is just reaching a ridiculous saturation point. And this is coming from someone who edits a journal and archive of video poetics...

But most of this indescriminate embedding is not of true hybrid works, or collaborative video/poetic praxis.

What I'd like to see is video content used well, and sparingly, and with reflection...

This is mainly because a fair number of well-known literature blogs, which I used to find stimulating places for conversation and analysis, have now apparently become places to simply embed content of recent readings (I won't bother naming names, it's obvious enough).


I find two sentences more interesting in the context of a blog than videos of poets reading. In a recent trend, these vids are increasingly filmed readings of poets and writers who have recently passed away. Especially in this context of a homage or obituary, isn't it far more moving and personal to actually say something? One line, one word even, anything. At least say something about the video!  

I understand that people don't have all that much time, or even any time at all. Especially when a blog has been running for so many years. At times, for various reasons, I've left this space silent for 6 months or more.

But silence (or spatial absence) is surely better than "[person you've vaguely heard of] reading last night at the [place you've vaguely heard of]" embed.

This is not meant to be snarky... I just miss those places. I miss those lit blogs I used to love.