The Christening

I will admit preemptively that I am not really sure how to do this. I have proudly resisted the idea of starting a blog in the past, for the simple reason that I am skeptical of screens--suspicious of a technology as powerful and sophisticated as ours has become, a technology the possesses such a limitless potential for abuse. The abuse of one's time, and the abuse of one's spirit. There is something, to my mind, intrinsically anti-social about the internet despite all of the supposed sociability that it facilitates.

That said, I find myself, this morning, setting aside the books I have been reading, the poems I have been revising, to start a blog. The prospect of having a regular forum to express my thoughts and ideas, and to connect with other people's thoughts and ideas, excites me. Of course, it also worries me, for I am prone to addiction, and to an addict that which is exciting is also dangerous.

Leaving aside this caveat, however, I am attracted to the idea of creating a community forum for literature: for mine as well as other people's. In fact, I own a poem box. It is a small wooden box, bought in a thrift shop in Portland, Oregon, which currently holds fifty of my most finished poems. Two weeks ago, at the Last Thursday Alberta Street Fair in Portland, I carried the box around with me, performing poems for anyone who asked--they simply reached into the box and pulled a poem out at random. In this way, I hoped to engage with people--to render my poems manifest.

I christen this blog in the same spirit. In the next few days or weeks, I will post some of my poems here. I encourage anyone who wants to engage, to share, to contribute, to animate their work in some way, to be in touch.