Wednesday, September 26, 2007

poetry gets a second life?

Call me crazy or call me a digital anthropologist, but here you see me (well, my avatar, "Alf Fullstop") entering a poetry cafe in Second Life. Pretty nice looking place, a bit more upscale and cozy than the Bowery Poetry Club. I'm sure the coffee is better, though. I teleported to about a dozen poetry cafes, writers' hangouts, museums, digital schools, just to have a look around. It did this at 3 PM on a weekday, and there wasn't much poetry going on, but I found one reading space that was clearly set-up for an open mic. But again for now, nothing happening in the "arts & culture" areas. Nicely set up spaces but few people. Is this one of those new media solutions that turns out to be all talk and no serious action?

If I ever attend a poetry reading, I'll report on it in a future entry. Some reading this will be way ahead of me--already denizens of such readings and writers' communities in SL, but for me it's new and I hardly know yet how to talk about it. I'll get there. (I'm exploring possible virtual venues for Kelly Writers House-hosted readings and seminars. SL might not be it. I know there a dozen other easily accessible virtual communities, but this one seems to be catching on quickly. At least the software is not difficult to download.)

Interested enough in SL to read more about it? Go here and see that I've made links to eight articles about it.