Interesting article by Sven Birkerts on whether or not literary blogging is really a new-new thing, or just a marketing venue for the old-old thing -- literature in print. He makes a case for the fact that the new literary paradigm, a wholly Web-based form of literature, has yet to take hold. Are litblogs simply grazing behind the dinosaurs, heading only down their paths and thus a mere camp follower of a doomed print culture?
Of course I read about it in the Web version of a print dinosaur, the Boston Globe. As book review sections that might carry such speculative articles on literature and its forms and formats are fast disappearing from print, perhaps literary reviews and articles, increasingly to be found only online, will lead the way for the new-new literature.
Nice article on Charles Simic's dual honors this week, appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate and Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award ($100,000). I figure with the Laureate salary ($35,000) and his AAP award, Simic can just about buy a small, old-fashioned print magazine and run it for a couple of months.