“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?
