“Titles of the next five books of poetry you plan to
read,” asked poet Joanna Klink (511 – 01 Special Topics: Description). I wrote,
Standing Wave by John Taggart; After Calculus by Craig Watson; School of Udhra by Nathaniel Mackey; maybe Eunoia by Christian Bok; maybe Watchfulness by Peter O’Leary; maybe My Life in the Nineties and/or The Fatalist by Lyn Hejinian and maybe Tis of Thee by Fanny Howe. Though talking about Cole Swenson whetted my appetite for Such Rich Hour, which has languished on my shelf for a couple years (in part because I fantasize reading it and Très Riches Heures simultaneously). I’m also interested in reading some more by Myung Mi Kim, who wrote the wonderful Dura. And then, there’s The Maximus Poems, Pound’s Cantos… all competing with fiction and non-fiction that MUST BE READ.
Therefore, none of it will ever be read. By anyone.
I ask, has anyone read any of these books?
If I told you I read Standing Wave, After
Calculus, Eunoia, and Watchfulness—would you
believe me? That School of Udhra is full of my notes, kept on a
table in the basement where I read it when I fold laundry? Life,
yes. Tis, no.That Such Rich Hour is the only book
by Cole Swenson I haven’t read? Have I read more Myung Mi Kim? Is
there The Maximus Poems? What about “…September is end of thunder /
The hibernants go into their caves?” Would you believe me if I told you there’s
no fiction or non-fiction that “must be read”?
Why should you?
Why should you?
nearing 40 "winnie the pooh" and "finnegans wake" seem essential.
ReplyDeleteFill the gap with whatever intrigues.
And Beckett's "Watt" -- I think he (beckett) invented monty python. Gods bless him.
"Our aged heads are our homes/ We had a Speech, our children have/ evolved a jargon./ “A”-4
ReplyDeleteZukofsky //
I remember this blogpost & want to say, I think the long poem to pick if one must pick one is "A"
A lot of other long works seem part of a network / Duncan/Spicer/Blaser -- the Cantos / WCW
Rachel Blau DuPlessis?("Drafts" involves all the above / Olson &c)
"A" seems the most singular as I guess it should from its title / /
& this year or so have been reading through it all and feel it is the one text that if vanished I would be conceiving of what writing could/should be, in a very different (likely more positive as re: "career" but never mind that) way.
get the lovely blue one. They seem to be going cheap at the moment.
(I got "A"-22&-23 as published 196x / more transportable format /
next I want to aim for "Catullus" with the facing Latin original but I need to save) \
but so "A" by Z / life-long /
So maybe "what must be read" = what cannot imagine not being written / but then one would have had to have read in order to -- oh no --
But, that blue "A" is so lovely, why not. Simple, really.