The state of receptivity needed to become open to a new writer. I felt it yesterday as a took Fanny Howe's books to a coffee shop and devoured them. There is a stage when you are still deciding how good a writer is. A subsequent stage when you already know and can begin actually to READ. I was bowled over by Howe; I won't apologize for excess of enthusiasm. The aptness of the details is what got to me, both in novels and poems. Good writing, carefully crafted, but not dry or etiolated. Traditional virtues like "well-drawn characters" combined with an avant-garde edge.

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I don't think the idea of a "creep" school is the best approach to writers like Lisa Jarnot, Moxley, Stroffolino, Mullens. An unuseful ideological projection, whether wielded by those promoting or questioning writers of this generation.

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Anonymous back of head in student newspaper, getting hair cut.