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Softblow
Singapore
2 Posts |
 Posted - 21 Sep 2004 : 15:57:36
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Introducing SOFTBLOW, a new poetry journal online now at www.softblow.org.
Founded by Cyril Wong, this journal is edited by a small but enthusiastic bunch of editors who will unload the whole weight of their personalities in due time.
SOFTBLOW will be frequently promoted to poetry audiences in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Canada, New Zealand and the States. Our first issue features more than a fine handful of poets: Mani Rao (Hong Kong), Margot Schilpp (USA), Dinah Roma (Philippines), Alvin Pang (S'pore), Lyn Lifshin (USA), Cyril Wong (S'pore), Jerome Kugan (Malaysia), Christopher Ujine Ong (S'pore), and Madeleine Marie Slavick (Hong Kong).
More than just another literary site featuring excellent work by award-winning as well as emerging poets, this online journal hopes to focus all attention back to poetry.
Only one or two poets will be added at any given time, with representative bodies of poems. Featured poets will eventually be put into an Archive section to make room for the new poets. In time, there will be a long section where there will be several poems by a selected poet to span a significant and extensive writing career.
We more than welcome poets of every nationality! Quality of work is the only criteria. However, poets will not be paid for having their works featured here.
Also, there are no short stories here, as prose of this kind get more than their fair share of attention elsewhere. Prose that defies categorising falls under poetry in my book and is more than welcome here at SOFTBLOW.
To submit, simply paste 4-6 poems with a short bio in the body of an email and send it to the editor@softblow.org. |
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Nicholas Liu
Singapore
59 Posts |
Posted - 06 Oct 2004 : 23:32:11
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| Eh, why not do issues, even if irregular-sized ones? It's tough on the reader to rely on "check[ing] back regularly" to catch the new stuff. One of the reasons why I don't often visit Poetry Billboard, which has a similar approach. |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 07 Oct 2004 : 21:02:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
Eh, why not do issues, even if irregular-sized ones? It's tough on the reader to rely on "check[ing] back regularly" to catch the new stuff. One of the reasons why I don't often visit Poetry Billboard, which has a similar approach.
nick wld you visit more often if you were informed each time new content is added? |
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Nicholas Liu
Singapore
59 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2004 : 08:16:01
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| Yes, but I probably wouldn't sign up for such a mailing list or whatever. Mailing lists are an annoyance. What I'd want is some easy way of telling, whenever I visit the site, what's new since I last visited. Having issues is one way, and the most natural IMHO for a lit site. |
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Hsien Min
Singapore
49 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2004 : 09:35:37
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| Heh, the thing about issues is keeping them going, as all of us at QLRS know only too well... With ad hoc updates Alf and Cyril can work on their sites only when they want to / have the time / have the material. Cheers, HM. |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2004 : 14:15:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
Yes, but I probably wouldn't sign up for such a mailing list or whatever. Mailing lists are an annoyance. What I'd want is some easy way of telling, whenever I visit the site, what's new since I last visited. Having issues is one way, and the most natural IMHO for a lit site.
The other common online practice is to have a WHAT'S NEW section right upfront to indicate the most recently added content. News sites do that (Breaking News), for instance. Even though editorial content providers (eg newspapers) commonly put out material at traditional intervals, there is now equally the expectation that fresh news is available round the clock (newswires) or as it happens.
and then there are blogs - where a popular blogger might only post material when he/she feels like it and still gets read. Surely published authors also operate similarly - which is why you'd check the bookstores or press releases occasionally to find out when so and so might have a new book out. Of course, if you're not already fan, you're not going to bother anyway. |
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Nicholas Liu
Singapore
59 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2004 : 22:17:56
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| What it boils down to is that it would be nice to go to the main page and be able to tell, at a glance, what's new and what's not. Seeing Issue 6 and recalling that the last issue you read was Issue 5 is convenient; seeing 26/09/04 attached to an individual poem and trying to remember when one last visited, however, is not. |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2004 : 23:26:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
What it boils down to is that it would be nice to go to the main page and be able to tell, at a glance, what's new and what's not. Seeing Issue 6 and recalling that the last issue you read was Issue 5 is convenient; seeing 26/09/04 attached to an individual poem and trying to remember when one last visited, however, is not.
You've either read it or you haven't, no? |
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Hsien Min
Singapore
49 Posts |
Posted - 21 Oct 2004 : 09:37:49
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| Not all poems are so memorable! And I guess Nicholas wants to save himself the trauma of re-reading something that didn't grip him the first time round... ;) |
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Angeline Yap
Singapore
2 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2004 : 10:08:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Hsien Min
Not all poems are so memorable! And I guess Nicholas wants to save himself the trauma of re-reading something that didn't grip him the first time round... ;)
I think Hsien Min has something there.
AY |
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Nicholas Liu
Singapore
59 Posts |
Posted - 27 Oct 2004 : 00:42:42
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Alvin, I would probably remember, but only after reading the poem. Plus, if I turn out to have read it before, I will then have to go on to the next poem to see if I've read that--and on it goes, if I'm unlucky and/or haven't visited in a long-ish while. There is no easy way of drawing a line beyond which I know the stuff is new to me. With QLRS and most other lit ezines (or whatever you want to call them), I can do this a a glance.
It's not a fatal flaw, but I think it does turn off the casual or occasional visitor. |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 27 Oct 2004 : 01:28:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
Alvin, I would probably remember, but only after reading the poem. Plus, if I turn out to have read it before, I will then have to go on to the next poem to see if I've read that--and on it goes, if I'm unlucky and/or haven't visited in a long-ish while. There is no easy way of drawing a line beyond which I know the stuff is new to me. With QLRS and most other lit ezines (or whatever you want to call them), I can do this a a glance.
It's not a fatal flaw, but I think it does turn off the casual or occasional visitor.
Well then I'd have to say that PBB is structured for a different kind of casual or occasional visitor.
With the time-stamp I find it easy to simply read the most recent addition and work backwards until I hit a familiar patch (pretty much like online blogs that I stumble upon and come to enjoy). As a reader I'd appreciate an alert whenever new material comes in tho.
Personally I don't often have time to consume the glut of poems that comes with issue-based journals (most of the time I wind up skipping quite a bit of each issue), and even when I do, I find myself impatient for the next episode, as it were.
Then again, if there are simply too many poems (worth reading) than you can remember from your last visit, it's a happy problem for me. I find nothing wrong with re-reading a good one from time to time. Indeed, I'm thinking of playing around with a "random" button for PBB. Think "shuffle" on a CD player. In which case PBB may become more of a jukebox than a journal. Currently, it's a little like an online ("vbulletin") forum, or duh: a billboard; ie. a fresh posting can come at any arbitrary time.
I do wish I had more decent material to put up regularly on PBB -- there simply aren't enough updates, even tho I've made it much easier to post a new piece online. And I have enough deadlines in my life to bother with another regular milestone.
Funny thing is, people have been helping themselves by posting poems to PBB's true-blue message board segment, "Your Voice". I notice oddly enough that this no longer happens on QLRS Forum. Pity, that : the Poetry Challenge responses were quite seminal once, Time for a revival?
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Hsien Min
Singapore
49 Posts |
Posted - 27 Oct 2004 : 10:50:13
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quote:
Personally I don't often have time to consume the glut of poems that comes with issue-based journals (most of the time I wind up skipping quite a bit of each issue), and even when I do, I find myself impatient for the next episode, as it were.
That's part of the reason why we restrict the number of poems we publish. Although theoretically with a web-based journal we could publish 20, 25, 30 as we wanted, I at any rate felt that it was better to keep it to 8-12 per issue, partly not to overload and partly that added limitation tends to keep the quality of what is published high. (Even if, with this issue, I had the other headache, which was too many publishable poems.)
quote:
Funny thing is, people have been helping themselves by posting poems to PBB's true-blue message board segment, "Your Voice". I notice oddly enough that this no longer happens on QLRS Forum. Pity, that : the Poetry Challenge responses were quite seminal once, Time for a revival?
I think that's simply a function of the "members only" feature, which, as noted elsewhere, is a necessary for spam-protection. Unless you have any better ideas on this? But yes, please do revive the Poetry Challenge. If nothing else I need something to get the juices running again.
Cheers,
HM |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 27 Oct 2004 : 17:44:51
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quote:
Originally posted by Hsien Min
Personally I don't often have time to consume the glut of poems that comes with issue-based journals ....
That's part of the reason why we restrict the number of poems we publish. ... (Even if, with this issue, I had the other headache, which was too many publishable poems.)
Wise choice; tho I'd say having too many is a happy problem (I assume they are in the future pool in case of drier issues?)
quote:
I think that's simply a function of the "members only" feature, which, as noted elsewhere, is a necessary for spam-protection. Unless you have any better ideas on this? But yes, please do revive the Poetry Challenge. If nothing else I need something to get the juices running again.
Like you have the time to write these days! But strangely enough the regulars at the old forum, who aren't spammers themselves, are not joining in either...
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juwel
4 Posts |
Posted - 02 Nov 2004 : 19:11:36
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Speaking of Softblow and updates - Softblow is updated! With the Lit Wing special, which is why I'm trumpeting it :)
http://www.softblow.org/hcjc.html
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Cyril Wong
Singapore
16 Posts |
Posted - 05 Nov 2004 : 14:31:19
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Hi there. I have only just read the messages here. If a potential reader does not like to check back regularly and if that same reader also does not want to be on a mailing list, I have to remind myself that I have had many emails from poets all over who tell me they love to be updated via our mailing list, and fans of the featured poets who stumble on SOFTBLOW and want to be spammed with poetry updates as well. This site was not meant to cater to everyone in the first place. It has been a source of joy to read the works that have come in, as well as to receive the feedback from poets whose work we also admire.
Finally, if having issues is "natural" to you, by all means, stick to journals that give you what you want (I don't have to tell you this).
And thanks Judith for the update on the LitWing page. You people rock! |
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SOFTBLOW | Online Poetry Journal
