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Friday Notebook 10.21.11
Merwin, Wright (Charles), Rengetsu, Issa, and … Hutchison? Thanks to Don Wentworth for letting my Earth-Boat into his harbor…. * * * I’ve been on a vacation from verse, it seems—stymied in my own work, disappointed in the four or five collections I’ve been eking away at for weeks (no need to name names; it may be just my mood, but is recent American poetry not withering from being over-fertilized by cleverness?). Anyway, I recently finished Lawrence Durrell’s Monsieur.Read More
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More Real than Reality
This morning I ran across this nauseating article, which made me feel, yet again, ashamed of my country.Read More
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In Praise of Serendipity (UPDATED)
A couple of weeks ago I was visiting family in Eugene, Oregon, a small city with several excellent used book stores. In my favorite store, Tsunami Books, I picked up Linda Hamalian‘s A Life of Kenneth Rexroth for a mere six bucks. The picture she paints of Rexroth isn’t pretty—a tale of paranoia, sexist behavior, personal violence, egotism; serial infidelity on the one hand and pie-eyed romanticism on the other—but through it all Rexroth’s powerful intellect and creative energy radiate.Read More