Some people complain that social media like Facebook and Twitter are depersonalizing human interaction, but the complainers forget – every medium is only as personal as you make it. With the new emphasis on brevity and concision in tweets and status updates, serious communicators have to pack the maxium meaning into the minimum space. Sort of like poetry tries to do. And if few social networkers are attempting to create poetry, well, real poets are scarce everywhere you go.
Tomorrow night (Thursday March 31) at 7pm, former U.S. Poet Laureate and NPR celeb Billy Collins will give the keynote address (and a reading) for TCU’s three-day “Living By Poetry” symposium Mar 31-Apr 2. Other guests at various campus events will include Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry Magazine, and current Poet Laureate of Texas Karla K. Morton as well as former state laureates Paul Ruffin and Alan Birkelbach. I have no idea what these poets think of the online world of words, but you better believe they’ll be asked.
