Books I'm Reading

I checked out the following books the other day from the Jefferson County Public Library. Ben Lerner's Angle of Yaw and The Lichtenberg Figures, Invisible Bride by Tony Tost, Julia Spahr's this connection of everyone with lungs, and The Last Clear Narrative by Rachel Zucker. So far, I seem to like Angle of Yaw the best at the moment, but I find all of them interesting in that they write so very differently than I do, but I find the poems compelling. I must in some ways be conditioned to my small place in the universe, the border, the Rockies. I don't know, but I like these strange poems in their very different places and spaces, more so Lerner and Tost. Of course I am probably missing something with the Rachel Zucker. The anti-narrative tirade of the times grows old. I want to tell a story sometimes.

In any case, I hope to write a story of some sort when school is out for the semester. I wonder if I can write narratively anymore, but since I am stuck in so many ways, I thought maybe I'd try something different, but I did recently complete an essay that needs to be edited which of course I am worried about in that I say some unpopular things, but they are things I believe in at the moment. I think there is a risk to vulnerability and honesty and uncovering one's mask(s). I think those are the things that last, our humanity towards one another--

I'm going to type a short excerpt of a poem from Lerner's Angle of Yaw which I keep typing as Angle of Law.

"A PERSON IS PHOBIC, that is, mentally imbalanced, when his/
fears fail to cancel out his other fears. The healthy, too, are terrified of/
heights, but equally terrified of depths, as terrified of dark as light..."

I'd like to type the whole thing, but since it's not my poem, I thought it best to type just a bit of it, so you, you(?) [me, myself and I] can reflect on it. In any case, I like the poem quite a bit. There are others which interest me, and I can't wait to sit and fully enjoy them in a couple of weeks.

I have a ton of papers to grade this weekend, but it's almost over. I'm on that final stretch, which does seem like the end of some marathon.