Harriet

Categories

Harriet
Contributors

Archive

Blogroll

All Posts

Poetry News

Google Alert!

By Travis Nichols


The poetry news website Choriamb announced it will be hanging up its press chapeau after five years of linking to all the verse news fit to peruse. The site had been a labor of love for Tanya Angell Allen since August 2004, when she co-founded the site with Becky Rodia, according to the site’s info page.
In announcing the change from news and reviews to “something new,” Choriamb offered up the “Top Four Places to Find Poetry News” in its stead, including Jilly Dybka’s Poetry Hut, Poetry News Daily, and the Poetry Foundation’s own Dispatches page. In its description Choriamb suggested that the PoFo “seems to draw a lot from Google News,” which got me thinking about that particular new fangled clippings service, especially in relation to the previously (endlessly?) discussed Pirate Poetry Anthology.


“Google News” and/or “Google Alerts” seems to be one of the major ways word of the Pirate Anthology got around. Many poets seem to use Google Alerts or Google News to track when and where their names pop up online, and when the anthology site with all those names popped up, many poets got notification from Google, followed the link, and away we went into hundreds of comments and a lengthy discussion.
(For the uninitiated, the Google Alert service sends users an email with a link anytime a certain word or phrase appears on the web)
It is, of course, highly debatable whether or not having a Google Alert for your name is a form of arch narcissism (as was suggested in the comments back there), or just a way to keep up with yourself, which can be no small feat in this info-age.
A friend of mine, interviewing for a job outside the Poetry Sector, thought he should mention to his interrogators that he wrote and published poetry. The interviewers smirked at one another and said, “Oh yes, we know. We Googled your name. It’s standard practice.”
Yes. Since it’s standard practice, it’s not such a bad idea to try and keep track of how and when and why your name might be put to use. But what if the world is full of people with your particular name? Then, not only is there no real hope of keeping control of your good name, but for the arch narcissist any good feelings that might arise from someone talking about your work is offset by repeated reminders that your parents were not altogether original way back when.
These doppelgooglers trouble the idea of what is and is not in the self society reads. Is this a particularly contemporary concern? Did Shelley notice another Percy haunting the countryside surrounded by bailiffs and so thought: “Bugger! I guess I’ll have to be Percy Bysshe Shelley!” Or what about Ford Maddox Ford? Tanya Angell Allen? Edna St. Vincent Millay?

2008-10-22

Comments (7)

  • On October 23, 2008 at 11:03 pm Katie wrote:

    Travis, this is funny! I especially like the video accompaniment!
    Report this comment

  • On October 24, 2008 at 11:08 am Javier Huerta wrote:

    My doppelgoogler is a painter. He even owns javierhuerta.com. Good thing I have that “O” in the middle. Maybe he and I can do a collaboration.
    As to the question in you last paragraph, remember that part in the movie American Splendor when Harvey notices another Harvey Pekar in the phone book then another. Then he says, “Who are all these Harvey Pekars.” That was good.
    Report this comment

  • On October 24, 2008 at 3:43 pm Travis John Nichols wrote:

    I tried to collaborate with my doppelguoogler in Austin once–also a visual artist, like yours Javier. I thought it would be funny to do an autobiographical piece, but we didn’t see eye to eye on the project.
    Report this comment

  • On October 25, 2008 at 10:34 am Kent Johnson wrote:

    Travis,
    You’re in Austin? Did you see me pass out when I read there last March?
    Kent
    Report this comment

  • On October 26, 2008 at 12:59 pm Travis Nichols wrote:

    Kent,
    That was a bit of a syntax error. My namesake (or one of them) is in Austin. I’m in Seattle. I did not see you pass out. In Austin. But I was there in spirit.
    Travis
    Report this comment

  • On October 26, 2008 at 2:21 pm Anonymous wrote:

    > …But I was there in spirit.
    Travis,
    Do you have a large ring in your lower lip and a handlebar moustache?
    That’s the face I saw, right before I woke up.
    Kent
    Report this comment

  • On October 26, 2008 at 7:14 pm Travis Nichols wrote:

    I actually have a handlebar in my lower lip and a large ring moustache, but you have the general idea.
    Report this comment


Posted in Group Blog, Poetry News on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 by Travis Nichols.

All Posts