(prompted by recent discussion on a few weblogs)
Web Del Sol is not a “literary arts new media complex”, it is a strip mall at the edge of the artistic part of town, a litter-strewn ghetto attempting to retain some allure by proximity to greater lights. Imagine their front page as a porn site, replacing the wash of self-promotion with ads for hot lesbian love and penis enlargement, and guess what? It still works. Commoditization and aggregation. The worst of the static tendencies of the mainstream coupled with the least effective groping of those who wish to be experimental.
The sad thing is, there’s some fine work buried amongst the dross (though in many cases it makes more sense to just buy the print journals and support the real creative forces at work than spend time shielding your eyes at WDS which is just cherry picking their content). The Houlihan pieces under much discussion in poetry blog-land, as weak as she might be in some of her analysis, at least weren’t afraid to tackle aesthetic issues head-on and take a stand about them. Double Room, which is the first item to lure me back to WDS in a long time (due to Ron Silliman’s recent mention), is incredibly interesting, particularly paired with The Prose Poem, which WDS has also scooped up into its gaping maw.
The problem is that most of the WDS original offerings are weak. The quality work suffers greatly being situated amidst the dreck, and the flaws of the original work suffer in the harsh spotlight of comparison… none of which is helped by the shrill shill design motif, multiple broken links, and the incessant tone of self-promotion that taints most of the site that isn’t created by someone else. What the place really needs is what it has never had– a firm, competent editor with a vision encompassing something other than self-promotion and quality as defined by quantity.
Chris Lott is a well known axe-grinder from way back who WDS backlotted long ago for defamatory, ugly, and generally reprehensible behavior.
His bias is childish.
That’s an out and out lie. I couldn’t be “backlotted” as I have never had any dealing with Web Del Sol as an author, editor, critic, or in any role but as a reader. I reiterate here, for the first time in a few years, the same kind of comments I made when Web Del Sol was brought up on a mailing list I belong to because WDS has been the subject on a few weblogs as a possible host for a discussion on the state of contemporary poetry.
Had it not been brought up in that conversation (and coincidentally by Ron Silliman in a recent post), I’d have had no reason to go back. When I did, it was pretty much the same experience I had last time– only the sprawl was worse.
Other than that, Web Del Sol as an enterprise and Mike Neff as its thin-skinned proprietor occupies none of my time or mind.
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