static

Just to let the world know that I haven't fallen off the end of the pier, let me mention some of the things that have kept me away. A stretch of compulsive poetry writing, one of those "visitations" one dare not get in the way of (or away from), plus reading my usual mass of mixed stuff: more Proust (of course), Lorine Niedecker, Ted Kooser, Dean Young, plus a few mags. None of this has yet jelled into anything, though I am, as always, astonished at what Niedecker was able to strip away from perception and still perceive. More than that, the getting close to the geology and plant/bird life of her place, which makes her work sink down in. And, of course, said he realizing it, this is one of the reasons the human presence in her poetry is, though definitely there, thin. As in, thin as a knife blade. The outlines of a hard life are certainly there, but hardship aside, the hard life turned into the lens through which she could see.