Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Instant Poetry (no magnetic words necessary)

Click your way over to Ken Gordon's new project, a tech-savvy new concept website: QuickMuse. His recent article published in Poets and Writer's explains his intentions a bit, but I confess the most amusing thing about the article is Andre Codrescu's slam of Gordon's idea as "not even entertaining". But don't listen to Codrescu (at least not in this instance.) Gordon has wisely given up on the competitive idea behind the site, and what remains is an attempt to use the internet's spontaneity to probe the creative process. The stable of writers who have signed on to the project is a star-studded one. Thylias Moss and Paul Muldoon have already posted to the blog and according to Claire Zulkey at mbtoolbox, Robert Pinsky and Marge Piercy are on the way. The playback option is a fun feature: "watch" your favorite poets write poems from the comfort of your own desk chair. The downside: the possibility that the most "entertaining" aspect of the sight is watching Moss make typos.

Which puts me in mind of another techno-wonder for the ever-busy writer: one of my favorite, favorite, favorite authors, Margaret Atwood, has come up with a gadget which is frankly weird. Bethanne Patrick writes about it in her blog: AOL Bookmaven. When a long-distance book-signing is the only option, we can now turn to The Long Pen.

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