Currently reading:: Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, The Feminist Avant-Garde in American Poetry, Selected Stories (Walser), Collected Essays (Emerson)
This blog has been characteristically silent, for which I apologize to whosoever might happen to read it. Now, on with it—
I’ve always liked having multiple projects on my plate—if one goes to hell, there’s always another to work on until the first gets back on track. But now I find myself with no less than four undertakings of no small size. The most prominent is the dissertation, which is early-on, but in process nonetheless. Also, a new poetry manuscript, but the writing is long and hard on this one, more so than usual. I’ve also started a collection of non-fiction shorts, and most recently, what may be a novel. This last is an update to the epistolary form, and it’s tentatively titled Cléance & Josephine. It’s a pity I know so little about fiction, and even less about prose. It’s all a lot to mull over.
It’s difficult to balance time between research and reading, critical and creative writing. Sometimes I even forget which I’m doing almost when I’m in the middle of doing it. For the dissertation, I’m re-reading, closely, Susan Stewart’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. That volume, and her essays in The Open Studio, are precisely the kind of theoretical sounding board this project needs. I also noticed Stewart has just come out with a new volume of poetry, Red Rover. More on this once I’ve gotten my hands on it and read it through. But what could be more lovely than these lines from “Tag,” which appeared in a 2005 issue of The American Poetry Review:
Before you touch me,
I will run.
If I touch you, you
must stop.
If I lose you, we
won't stop
and must run on
as two
forever.
And on—talk about a smart, contemporary lyric, and with such careful sound. Other books of poetry by Stewart are Yellow Stars and Ice, The Forest, Columbarium, and The Hive.
* * * * *
We’re deep in winter in Ithaca now. Incomparable in its quiet, the winter
This blog has been characteristically silent, for which I apologize to whosoever might happen to read it. Now, on with it—
I’ve always liked having multiple projects on my plate—if one goes to hell, there’s always another to work on until the first gets back on track. But now I find myself with no less than four undertakings of no small size. The most prominent is the dissertation, which is early-on, but in process nonetheless. Also, a new poetry manuscript, but the writing is long and hard on this one, more so than usual. I’ve also started a collection of non-fiction shorts, and most recently, what may be a novel. This last is an update to the epistolary form, and it’s tentatively titled Cléance & Josephine. It’s a pity I know so little about fiction, and even less about prose. It’s all a lot to mull over.
It’s difficult to balance time between research and reading, critical and creative writing. Sometimes I even forget which I’m doing almost when I’m in the middle of doing it. For the dissertation, I’m re-reading, closely, Susan Stewart’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. That volume, and her essays in The Open Studio, are precisely the kind of theoretical sounding board this project needs. I also noticed Stewart has just come out with a new volume of poetry, Red Rover. More on this once I’ve gotten my hands on it and read it through. But what could be more lovely than these lines from “Tag,” which appeared in a 2005 issue of The American Poetry Review:
Before you touch me,
I will run.
If I touch you, you
must stop.
If I lose you, we
won't stop
and must run on
as two
forever.
And on—talk about a smart, contemporary lyric, and with such careful sound. Other books of poetry by Stewart are Yellow Stars and Ice, The Forest, Columbarium, and The Hive.
* * * * *
We’re deep in winter in Ithaca now. Incomparable in its quiet, the winter
2 comments:
I am blown away at your writing. Happily, I started on FB and then jumped around reading your stuff. So good! It makes me miss you so much. Anyway it looks like you have been busy, but productive and happy. ?
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