"It wears the uniform of the sort of poetry I like." One of the series of aphorisms I wrote about 10 years ago. The idea that you ought to like a certain sort of poet, belonging to the tradition you identify, but find the actual reading somewhat tedious. Barthes has a similar observation somewhere about "blackmail," when someone gives him an unpublished experimental novel and says: "here, this conforms exactly to your theories of literature." I don't remember the exact quote, and in fact enjoy quoting inaccurately, from memory. Oftentimes the quote I am thinking of ends up being (and meaning) something quite different.



I've been reading Guest's biography of H.D. That whole modernist mythopoetic/astrological thing I never really got into. Huge chunks of H.D., Duncan, Kelly, that I feel alienated from for this reason. Not to mention Yeats and Pound.

There is no joy in checkmating a 7-year old. Especially when I myself am so inept I don't even realize I am checkmating her.