Poetry written in English--as professor of Spanish I am not professionally responsible for it, therefore I can enjoy it. If I had to write a book about the second generation New York school poets I would lose this purity of intentions. The sense of wasting time: reading without a professional vested interest.

We call what we do (in academia) "the profession." I am now in the process of missing the MLA in New York City. What if I am not there, and I miss something significant? If I were to drop out of "the profession" I would fear that the field would exist without me, pass me by. Irrational fear, since presumably I wouldn't care any more. It seems to take a tremendous effort to keep one's name in circulation. I'll have to rejoin the MLA, go to the conventions, publish articles in journals that interest me very little. The fact that my wife is now the editor of the scholarly journal I most respect--therefore I cannot publish there anymore--makes me less interested in publishing articles at all. I have a huge backlog from last summer and even before.

***

Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,
illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se et suos amavit omnes,
nunc in quadraviis et angiportis
glubit magnamani Remi nepotes.

This irony, based on simple contrast and incongruity, is still quite legible to the contemporary reader. I love the shift in meaning and function from the first demonstrative adjective "Lesbia illa" to the second "illa Lesbia." We still use the demonstrative adjective placed after the noun in Spanish in that derogatory sense (el hombre ese). I still remember this poem even though I have forgotten most of my Latin. I may have gotten one or two words wrong. What sort of sexual act is "glubit"? I cannot be sure, but I have a pretty good idea.