People can claim sometimes thousands of “friends” on Facebook. But, how many of those people listed do you ever interact with in real life? How many would you want to interact with?

What about family? Has our technological interface options ever come between you and a loved one? Has anyone ever said to you, “Put the iPhone down and talk to me”? Or, “Don’t text me. Call. I want to hear your voice.”

Marshall Soulful Jones was part of Team Nuyorican 2011, 2nd place finishers at the National Poetry Slam in Boston. Here he performs “Touchscreen” at The Bowery Poetry Club, New York.

And she thinks that Twitter and text messaging is helping our kids with the art of poetry.

Talking to the Telegraph, the 55-year-old poet said that “the poem is a form of texting…it’s the original text.”

Her argument in support of social media and mobile communication stems from the fact that poetry and Twitter have a lot in common. They are both forms of communication that rely on economy of language – saying what you want to say with less.

“[Poetry is] a perfecting of a feeling in language – it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.

We are reading less now than we did and a lot of young people spend a lot of time in front of a computer on Facebook or tweeting.

We’ve got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them.”

She says that poetry is the literary form most suited to survive the “age of Twitter and Blackberry” because it is about brevity, and therefore more accessible.

I’m with you, Carol. I, for one, have been know to make use of the 140 character limit to showcase some of my awesome haiku skills.

Let’s think about your basic txtspk.

“Y r u doin that bro?”

“I kno rite? srsly, its fukkin dum”

It all seems to be a descendant of Shakespeare or Milton or Yeats. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day // yo, word.”

And this, my friends, must be the work of a modern day poet –

But in all seriousness, does Duffy have a point? Poetry is all about creating emotion and conveying complex ideas with sparse language – showing not telling. Is all that Tweeting and Texting allowing people to practice their poetry, without even knowing it?

It’s true that studying poetry helps you to be a better prose writer, as you learn how to be concise and how to use only 5 words when you want to use 15. In the same way, Twitter teaches us to use 140 characters when we might want to use 500.

Is poetry being kept alive by social media and texting? Let us know how you feel.

Shatner, accompanied only by stand-up bass and bongos, brought his "unique" style to the reading. Check it out for yourself below:

For your reading pleasure, below you can find all of Sarah Palin’s tweets that were mentioned in the video. Enjoy.

And the people start shouting for somebody to pull on the reins. A Microsoft/Yahoo assault seems to be the only recourse for blocking an all-out Google takeover of the advertising/publishing industry.

Former Microsoft employee Robert Scoble says the acronym "FOG" (Fear of Google) has entered the common lexicon of the marketing world:

"The perception on the street is that Google is leaving its competitors in the dust and they don’t like that, which is causing them to cheer on Microsoft and Yahoo just so they’ll do something interesting and stay in the game."

Coupled with the fear of monopolies is the fear of what Google knows about the average searcher/consumer. Demographic and behavioral data that Google could collect will become increasingly valuable commodities in the marketing world, which will bring up serious concerns about privacy on the Web.

FOG isn’t new, even if it’s new to the mainstream. A quick Google search shows that the acronym was used as far back as 2005, when more astute observers began to notice the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s potential.

The Fear is prevalent enough at least to have inspired poems, even if this one has more to do with tedious time-consumption than all-encompassing market panic. Warning to the wise: Google poetry has quite the checkered history, but Stock’s send-up of the Googtopia at least brings it up a notch from its Vogon past.

Then again, this could just be traditional (nearly annual) Google jitters.

Yes, I like what the lawyer’s done here. He expresses his message with such clarity yet with such ferocity that the reader cannot help but get lost in the author’s finger pointing style. While the legalese is somewhat fatiguing, it adds an air of authenticity to the work, making this commanding prose a true fait accomplis.

At issue for the Group of Young Artists and Writers, better known in Poland as GMAiL, is the association of artists’ ownership of the domain gmail.pl. Google’s trademark lawyers are demanding the group give up the domain.

This isn’t the first time Google’s made an assault on poetry. Remember Matt Waddell’s arrhythmic tribute to Google Mobile services? Sadly, some of us will never forget.

The Group, in traditional artistic defiance of corporate governing, said that not only did they buy the domain "legally, with our own money," but they have no intention of giving it up without a fight.

Accusations that the Group was purposefully cybersquatting on the domain for a payday, which they deny, are moot. Google’s legal team made it very clear that the company "had no intention of paying for something which belonged to [Google]."

Google hasn’t had much success in Europe claiming the variations on Gmail domains. Their insistence has fallen on deaf ears in the UK and in Germany, where gmail.co.uk and gmail.de were in question. The difference in those cases, however, is that the domains were purchased before Google launched Gmail.

But that may not matter either considering Europe’s historical support of the arts. As we’ve seen in Belgium, writers win whether it makes any sense or not.

So, on this occasion of Google’s second assault on poetic profundity, we thought we’d revisit the ever-useful-in-a-poetry-spoof-bind Vogon poetry generator. Warning: do not read this aloud, as the point is to create really, totally, profoundly awful poetry that if uttered into the air, matter and antimatter everywhere would find each other thus negating existence. Ahem. Here ya go:

Googledygook

See, see the authoritarian sky
Marvel at its big salmon depths.
Tell me, Eric Schmidt do you
Wonder why the bush baby ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel scrunch-goggled.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your pusserchunked facial growth
That looks like
A Polish sausage.
What’s more, it knows
Your butternut potting shed
Smells of goose berries.
Everything under the big authoritarian sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm foot fungus.

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Here’s a couple of the more excruciating stanzas, as found on the Google Blog.

Place Google Local in your hand –
first, you need a data plan.
Your phone must handle Java too.
It helps if it is somewhat new.
To download, here is what you do:

Browse Google dot com slash g-l-m on your desktop.
Tell us ’bout your phone,
and we’ll show you a link to the file in a blink
and you’re ready to start…

I wouldn’t dare expose you to more than this excerpt as the hemorrhaging has only just ceased for myself. And I care about my readers.

Compare this to a bit of Vogon poetry, and you’ll easily see why Waddell’s ode out-stinks them, third only to Grunthos the Flatulent and his “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning,” and Paul Neil Johnstone of Redbridge, England.

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don’t.

Obviously, the Vogons have been outclassed.

With the help of the Vogon poetry generator, I have attempted to create a poem of my own, hoping to reclaim third place. Here goes:

See, see the Googleable sky
Marvel at its big puce and taupe depths.
Tell me, Matt Waddell do you
Wonder why the possum ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel Googleplexed.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your googladoodlywoo facial growth
That looks like
A moldy cheese.
What’s more, it knows
Your font potting shed
Smells of stuff under Eric Schmidt’s toenails.
Everything under the big Googleable sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm the funk of 40,000 years.

Sincerely submitted with a wink and a poke in the ribs for your approval from your humble servant.

Most writers and poets wait for action. Of course, very little happens. Some writers believe they are so gifted that the world will discover their abilities sooner or later.

Success only comes to those who take action. You need to make people aware about your writing. You don’t necessarily have to shout about it from a cliff top. But if you don’t market your writing in some way, publishers and readers will never find out about your talent.

You need to find someone who will promote your work. Someone who will do the marketing for you so that you become a well known writer or poet.

Getting your foot in the publishing industry is the first vital step. Once you are in, the opportunities that are often locked away behind closed doors can now start coming your way.

Successful writers always have their plates full – they have more work than they can handle in the hours that are available to them.

Take for example freelance writers, business writers, copywriters, etc. If you make yourself known to such writers, they can keep you in mind when they have writing assignments that they simply don’t have the time to undertake.

If you get to know authors, they can put you in touch with agents or literary scouts. They may also be able to offer other essential tips that will help you.

In short, it’s all about marketing and networking.

You have to make the phone calls, attend writing conferences, attend writing holidays, take writing classes, go to book fairs, join a writer’s circle, get out and meet people at literary events.

If you sit back and wait, you will be waiting for a very long time indeed.

Invest time, effort and money to kick-start your writing career. Some aspiring writers and poets believe that they will succeed without help from experts and mentors. In the long term, anyone with the determination can make it. However, if you get help from mentors or guides, you can avoid many delays and errors.

Once you decide to take writing as a serious profession, you can’t afford to be lazy. You, or someone acting in your interests, must continually promote your presence as a writer or poet.

If you are writing for your pleasure only, that’s fine. If you want other people to enjoy your writing, apply the marketing and promotion ideas mentioned above.

Consulting Editors, Authors and Mentors at
http://www.AskProfessors.com – creators of the Affiliate Intelligence
and profit systems, http://www.it-news.com and
http://www.InternetPressOffice.com

Art expresses emotions without words, and poetry, is, as someone said, “feelings through a crack pipe.” While I haven’t experienced anything through a crack pipe, I get the analogy, which is what poems, with their metaphors and analogies, are all about. It could also be said that good poetry “disturbs.”

Music also goes where words can’t. Music is, said Ludwig van Beethoven, the dominant figure between the Classical and Romantic eras, who composed his Ninth Symphony when totally deaf, “the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”

“Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman,” he said. To me, it has done both. I have turned to Beethoven’s “Eroica” for inspiration in hard times, and put on a John Philip Sousa march when I didn’t want to do housework.

Yet it was Beethoven who also said, “A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.”

Poetry is unusual in that it’s “measured”; it has a rhythm and a form. This somehow both contains the intense emotion, and also expresses it. It’s one of those paradoxical things.

We often turn to poetry at major transitions in our life – when we fall in love, or out of love, or lose our love. Poetry seems the best vehicle, with it’s eloquence, it’s containment, it’s ability to distill. The way the death of your child or the face of your beloved make you feel is beyond words, and so, in a paradoxical way, is poetry.

When my son died some years ago, at the age of 21, I started writing poetry, as I have at every turning point in my life. The words of Alfred Lord Tennyson reverberated in my mind:

“But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics numbing pain.”

Tennyson’s poem, “In Memoriam,” ends with the famous lines: ‘T is better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all,” which is what every parent struggling with the loss of a child must eventually reconcile.

Art, music and poetry are some of the ways we feel, learn about feeling, and express feelings. Indulge!

Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
http://www.webstrategies.cc. Marketing consultation,
implementation, website review, SEO optimization, article
writing and submission, help with ebooks and other
strategies. Susan is the author or How to Write an eBook
and Market It on the Internet. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc
for information and free ezine. Specify Checklist.