Would Allen Ginsberg Like Twitter?

Every person -- especially every creative person and particularly those of us driven by words -- is facing a modern day conundrum: what means you, Twitter? Let's get this out of the way. I don't have a Twitter page, nor have I ever tweeted (correction: I had a Twitter page, subscribed to Maureen Dowd and my friend Esther's feeds, and then quickly deleted my account). I have a Facebook page. Actually, I have skeleton of a Facebook page -- last Thursday, late, in a fit of identity panic, I deleted all vaguely personal information such as groups, pages, and particularly invasive photos. My thought -- networking, OK. I can handle that. This is the age we're in. But if I haven't seen you in five years, I don't want you to define me by the fact that I am a fan of Barack Obama, some clever jazz musician I saw once and felt compelled to follow, and the book written by my friend's boss -- whom I've never even met? That internet representation of me, the me it should take time to know and listen to and hear complain and rant and laugh, that's not me. That's not even a well thought-out advertising icon of me.

The general consensus among artists, at least ones I know, seems to be that blogging, Twitter and Facebook -- maybe social networking in general -- is going to be the death of the well-written word. Ask most poets if they are on Facebook, and they scowl. Old school journalists on blogging? Maybe you get an eye roll, a deep sigh, a resigned Iknowiknow I should, but Idontwanna (even as a contributor to Huffington Post and other web sites, I still treat each blog as an article, proofed and reread.). Twitter? Well, that's for Lindsay Lohan. Maybe you'll get them to admit it's been good for Iran. Maybe.

As a writer but also a communications professional, I've been struggling with what to make of social networking ever since my first James Bond-esque espionage journey through Friendster (my page exists out there somewhere, I don't know where, floating around in cyberspace like a lost apparition). To me, when my colleague persuaded me to finally join Facebook, it seemed like yet another version of these virtual high-school reunion substitutes, where everyone indulges their narcissism, people with children are seemingly required to include a profile picture either of their kid and/or with their kid, and nothing much actually happens. I posted a couple photos (where I look good, naturally). I linked to a couple of my articles (god forbid my friends live another day without reading my witty yet incisive interviews or commentary). I had an internal debate on the etiquette of allowing ex-boyfriends into my Web-based life. Once and a while, I told Facebook what I was thinking (example: "Marissa Moss Is heading to the Shenandoah Valley after a night at the Bluegrass Inn," written leaving Nashville on my recent cross-country drive). I tended to write updates of things I'd want to remember, like little moments for a clip reel of my life or notes for a scrapbook.

Then Twitter came around, and I started to get a little scared. You want to know what I'm thinking, all the time? My god.

I've known for a while I couldn't simply dismiss technology. I've always thought it kind of base to say you are above these sorts of things, like the ways I've always considered myself agnostic instead of atheist, because while I may not believe in god, who the hell am I to think I know what the truth is at twenty-something? Same with technology. Anyway, every great writer or artist uses the blood of their times to breed new life, not hack at the corpse of ideas past, memorialized yet rotting away in the graveyard of books or ideas or poems. But this stuff is new. This stuff is different. Right?

Cut to last Thursday. Late night, DC hotel, too much work, too little company, fair amount of wine. I had shifted the focus from my day-to-day responsibility to working on my novel (speaking of rotting away...). I try to practice a lesson I learned in college, the idea of justwriteitalldown and cut later, just get whatever is in your head in the easiest and quickest route possible. After all, I've written my best work this way, and have always idolized and tried to tap into that frame of being that Allen Ginsberg coined as spontaneous mind, as "first thought, best thought," as art as immediate, the blink of the eye and not the sight that comes after. Tried being the operative word.

First thought, best thought. Improvisational jazz, poetry slams and music jams, Ginsberg, Kerouac. First thought, best thought. Holy hell. Is that Twitter?

I started to think about the possibilities that one little line could hold. Could I spontaneously "tweet" poems to the entire world? Could I not only nurture this idea of first thought, best thought, but actually have a record of it? Would Twitter be the secret to unlocking that nasty habit of re-read, re-type, edit, delete, that's kept my writing locked away in that sad virtual manila folder called "work in progress" that sits idly on my computer desktop all day and all night, unopened, unshared?

Would Allen Ginsberg tweet?

The point is, I don't know. The destructive qualities of the Web are apparent and sometimes seemingly endless, but have we really, truly explored its creative qualities? Not to simply tell each other what we're doing, but what we're creating? I think we've all seen this past week, as tweets poured in from Iran, the potential power of this vehicle. We need to at least think, explore, wonder.

Man, there's no boundary line to art. Charlie Parker said that once, and it's true. By ignoring technology, are we willingly caging ourselves in? Again, I don't yet know. But I think we owe it to ourselves to play around a little, to question what works for us and what doesn't. You can't absorb it all and you can't reject it all until you've given it a fair trial by jury. It's a daily battle for me, but feel free to join.

Comments

[Tremonius]

I think "first thought - best thought" was Kerouac's, actually, reintroduced by Gladwell, and it looks good as a working premise - until you realize K's breakthrough Road went through the ringer and then editing many times, even after that madcap mythical three weeks on a roll. After Road, Dharma Bums, and Book of Dreams, the self-indulgent twitters on morphine read just as you might expect. Pick up Tristessa sometime, if you can find it, and then tell me about the glories of automatic writing. Even Mr and Mrs Yeats did nothing interesting with the practice. Impulsive writing is like Jazz artists on junk; it sounds much better to the artist than the audience.

Twitter is very late to the Literary Destruction party. I went online over twenty years ago, and already what McWhorter told us about in "Doing Our Own Thing" was well underway; the mere translation of reflexive speech into prose without thought interceding. You want impulse; read the commentary for any blog post. You'll find plenty of delirium there, but there is no second section of Visions of Cody anywhere anymore.

"Encourage him to write, Carolyn; he's as good a wordslinger as me, which is the best." - Kerouac, to Carolyn Cassady, about her husband. He was wrong about the first judgment, right about the second.

[blood1]

I'm willing to bet a nickle that I am older than most of you!

For me, there is something to be said for the quiet, no music, no phone, no Internet, Twitter, etc. So after admitting that I am old and do not feel any compunction to be in touch with anyone 24/7, I wonder how much intellectual thought actually occurs on all these social networking sites? When do you who live and die by constant communication have any time to think, formulate ideas, research topics both old and new, let alone write something that adds to the conversation?

I only started blogging last year (see, I told you I was old)...and after a few weeks "ranting", I was bored. I decided that if I was going to comment, it should be coherent, not an embarrassment...but that is just me!

For those of us who remember all the "old avant guarde" poets, I need to add my favorite to the list: Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

[Marissa Moss - Huffpost Blogger]

That's a valid point. Maybe it's not about words, but thought.
Then again, this is just the natural evolution of thought and how people think. Which changes all the time.

PS appreciate the Ferlinghetti shout-out.

-Mm

[3fingerbrown]

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by their obsession with informatio­n-delivery systems.

[hey0there]

yep. soon it will be everyone's minds.

[Aramingo]

Ginsberg tweet? Perhaps. But Hemingway? Frequently. About everything. Until death.

[LMPE]

He wouldn't have known what to think. We use the social networking sites to talk about even the most trivial stuff, but it's the most democratic medium in history.

[RevBookburn]

It's possible Allen Ginsberg would have liked it. It's a communication means and could make reconnection and large-scale networking possible. I doubt if he would write silly boring stuff like 'I'm doing the dishes.' Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[poetdoc]

I don't think Ginsberg would tweet because the internet is so inhuman. He was more about the human touch, and real community. I daresay he wouldn't be fooled by the false community offered by a service like Twitter. Facebook? Maybe...

[WriterRoss]

I think Allen Ginsberg would have adored Twitter, although perhaps he'd define his updates not as Tweets but... Howls. ;>

[mexamerican]

nice. by the way, i find that "writers" wringing their hands about the death of the word need to stick to doing what they do well. if you pay attention to your craft, things will be just fine. join the 21st century, or don't. the beats were certainly ahead of their time.