…by the natures of those who choose to follow my site. It seems counterintuitive. Once I see what they do, or write, I wonder: how can they possible find anything of little enough value here to follow. I write “little enough” and not “great enough” because I have, at certain times, an upside-down feeling when I visit certain sites. As though everything that is right is called by the name “wrong;” and everything that is wrong is called by the name “right.” What could such a man, living in such a world, possibly see in any world of mine?
Randomness. Random clicks are the only explanation I can visualize. Little has changed since the last time I picked up a copy of “Poetry” magazine. Or any similar publication or website. I think it was 1984. And as I have said in past posts. There is, in fact, no place for poetry to go but up. It has gotten sufficiently ugly, that there appears no room for it to become any more so. Hideous and twisted. Poetic orthodoxy is the orthodoxy of the unorthodox–which, in an of itself–is not a disaster. The phenomenon strikes me as being accompanied by a an overarching desire to see only the ugly; and furthermore, to see it in the most ugly way possible, and then to express it as such.
This has been going on for many, many decades now, and although there exists a groundswell of Romantic Realism, those that, young or old, are not part of that movement, seem not to tire of it. It seems to go on and on this way. Common sense seems to suggest that even the most fervent purveyors of ugliness would eventually tire of the ruse of it. The very falsity of it.
It does strike me as the very heart of falsehood. “The spirit of error,” if I may borrow a quote.
David Emeron: Sonnets 
Yes, when someone follows me, but their entire blog is anathema to what I believe–it kind of worries me…what is it that they saw on my blog that made them want to follow? Will they stay a follower when they see my next poem? And amen to your laments on modern poetry, at least the published variety–I do hope that the era of poems-without-beauty/hope/meaning might come to an end some time within my lifetime.
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It is happening, my dear WordCoaster, The Romantic/Romantic-realism movement is a growing interest. Believe it or not, one such artist even has her sculpture in the Louvre! I have a print which links from this sonnet:
https://davidemeron.com/?p=3013&preview=true
The sequence to which it belongs is the result of a prompt, or rather, a challenge from a fellow blogger as the result of one of our brief discussions. Do not be alarmed by its theme or subject matter; all subjects are fodder for Romanticism of the old-world variety. I would also caution you not to read too much into it. In any case, the sequence was, I will say, quite a joy to write, and served as a prompt to write one quite the opposite as well.
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Also, I think I should here state that, for me at least, it is more about a contrary aesthetic sense than a philosophical one. Collectivists follow Individualists on wordpress all the time–and vice versa. And while it is true that to a very great extent psycho-epistemology tends to match aesthetic sense, it is not always the case.
And, as my Dear Mrs. Emeron and I have often found hereabouts, one often finds a blog one enjoys as a result of following a link, or a “like” from a blog we do not enjoy at all. I usually follow most blogs in most moods in which I find myself. However there are those times, and those moods wherein I find something so odious wherein I cannot bring myself to do so–or to continue to do so.
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Sense this does make. I definitely have followed the 6-degree-of-blog-separation path before landing on a blog I love. And if someone follows me, I make sure to search their blog for something worth extolling–sometimes a simple task, and other times a tremendous chore. The relative ease usually determines whether I follow someone back.
Also, I tried the link to the Louvre sculpture, but it didn’t work for me. Not sure why.
Also, I must say that you baffle and amaze me. I find it hard enough to find time to post a poem per day–even a haiku sometimes takes some time, so I have no idea how you churn out such masterful sonnets all the time.
And may I ask what you mean by the 9,343,584 people can indeed be wrong line on the sidebar? No doubt I agree, but is there any significance to the number?
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Just so.
I usually do not look closely at first unless someone is kind enough to leave a comment, and even bring some post to my attention. If I did so, I would probably not follow quite so many blogs albeit in an “afk” style, to use a nerdy expression. Yours, for example, piqued my interest for several reasons. And I was delighted to find that your site is one of few worth exploring in detail. In fact I am quite looking forward to it.
Just looking about at random I already found your eye for detail and the the fact that you will experiment with practically any technique to be quite impressive. For example, in one of your sestinas you employ some additional constraints on the form. And, more to the point, they are the very constraints I had long decided to impose upon myself were I ever to attempt one. Namely a constraint to iambic pentameter, and the selection of homonym-able words that also constitute a rhyming set. Such a practice makes you seem a kindred spirit, I think. You will notice if you look around a bit that many, perhaps most, of my sonnets have additional constraints, extra rhymes, rhymes down the beginning or the centre, repeated words or figures, &c…
Ah well I can tell you exactly why! I knew even before looking, in fact. It is the result of the merging of three blogs into one invalidating a number of internal links. And it is the result of me not having cgi access to my site whereupon I could fix all such links with a few lines of korn shell, in no more than a few minutes. Although… the documentation regarding what is and is not possible on a WP hosted site is rather scattered to the winds and many, many features and workarounds are undocumented. In any case here is the link within the sonnet for your convenience, and thank you very much for bringing it to my attention:
https://davidemeron.com/tag/fh84y398h
The picture itself links to more such wonders.
Thank you. You are most generous in the use of your adjectives. What I have found is that the sonnets that take one 10 minutes to write and those that take several hours, or days, or weeks in come cases (for example those that require a degree of research and study) may be nearly indistinguishable from one another if one has some thing or things to communicate and/or many many things on ones mind. The upcoming sequence I mentioned above somewhere or other will be of the 10 minute variety; however still heartfelt things may (or may not : ) present themselves, causing them to seem to some readers as though they may have taken more time and consideration to write.
Even so,I am currently not writing one sonnet or more per day of late, but rather am resting on my laurels, so to speak, due in large part to the site merge I mention above, my desire to refine these merged entries, and partly due to additional work that has found its way to my door by one means or another.
Still… one must remember at such times as this that the 10 or 15 minute variety may be written when one is busier in life (I tend to fall into a mode of, if not perfectionism, then certainly the desire to spend ample time on a given piece) and… when it comes right down to it, 15 minute sonnets can easily become 2 or 3 hour sonnets later on when one has time to lucas them a bit.
It is a sort of joke; and you seem to have been the first to notice it. The number itself is an integer N wherein if we let my hit counter be called C,
where a and be are random constants I change every so often.
The joke being twofold:
First, that a site such as mine actually receiving this many hits is highly unlikely (unless, for example, the SouthPark guys decide to do an episode mocking my sonnets for some reason) and
Second that often people will use this number to erroneously state “Join 18,bazillion other wise and discerning followers” or “23 gajillion people can’t be wrong.”
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