nothing can beat the pure pleasures of browsing the stacks of the indie bookstore. which is what i did last night, stopping at time-tested books on the walk home from work. sac has it's fair share of independents. there are three within walking distance of my house. a lot of the pleasure is finding something that you were not looking for. plus, holding the book or chap in yr hand is so much more satisfying than looking at a jpeg of the book cover online.

yet if yr interested in small-press writing then finding a particular poet at the local indie is a matter of luck. often you won't find nothing. which is why i like the net so much. the ether can't ever beat the physical and mental pleasures of the physical object. but for sure accessibility a poetry blog is unmatched.

for example, canadian poet billy little has been publishing poetry for over 30 years. yet it was thru the net that i discovered his work. recently i found his blog which hasn't been updated since august. but it is filled with a life of passion, which is a quality a highly prize in a writer. don't matter if the writer is a pessimist, even a pessimist can find pleasure and excitement in life, reading and writing.

little's blog isn't a substitute for having his, or any writer's, books in hand. yet little i think published chaps and other small-press fugitive pubs which are next to impossible to find in any bookstore. so publishing, esp. blogging, on the net is perhaps the most efficient way to get the work out there. and ain't that what's it's about, getting the work out there. often i wonder what's the use of publishing. but publishing, by any means necessary, which is often the net nowadays, lets me be the reader i need to be too. without publishing then there would be nothing to read.