The Very Best of Enya

A lot going on as I am at the library looking out through a series of glass windows, onto a lake and the low foothills covered with snow.

I am alive, and it's a reason to celebrate!

I started reading a book called The Class Castle by Jeanette Walls. It's very good. It's about the dysfunctional childhood of the narrator. It's a memoir that has me drawn in like Mary Karr's THE LIAR'S CLUB.


I recently picked up OTHERHOOD by Reginald Shepherd and am finding that I don't connect with some of the poems very well, but there are most definitely beautiful moments of lyricism.

"4

"I cover the sea's voice with chalk
and circumstance, having only myself
to say, scattered smattering of singed
doll parts. They make their way
by means of breaking (schist
and marl): collapse into a clamor
of crows before appearances'
sake, and stand simple

5

in their wreckage..."

Overall, I find the poems a bit heavy and eager to impress, too eager to show some intellectual prowess or dominance. The language is often scientific and seems coerced. But there is often a time for breath and rest, which I guess moves me to read on. So, maybe it will be like my early reading of Elizabeth Bishop, where I came back to it later on and savored it. But the book is due today. Fact is, I'd rather read something else at the moment. I know other people love his work. I find it moving at times.

"....His only distance
will be horses, frontal herd
stampeding tides and currents
the one recorded interuptus.
Shored up with stored foam
deckle, scudding margin
kelp curs shine on stone."

Since poetry has become very academic, or set in academia to a large extend, there seems to be a trend towards density and experimentation, and this is not a bad thing necessarily, but it's not always my cup of tea.