A year ago today on Bemsha Swing:›

vikudagur, janúar 22, 2003
 
Clark Coolidge, another on my top twenty list, which only includes 19 in order to leave room for error. An incredibly powerful sense of sound and rhythm, obviously. I love the way he watches himself write, examining the process of writing as he goes along. Ambivalence? There are vast stretches I haven't yet come to terms with, especially in his later and very early work. For me, he hit a peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Own Face" is an extraordinary book. Likewise "The Crystal Text." I used to think he wrote too much, but then I realized that quantity, in this case, is an integral part of the entire project. You couldn't ask him to write less, anymore than you could limit Jordan to a thousand poems. I have about 100 favorite Coolidge poems. I think somewhere he calls this "the plethoric mode." I usually like short poems, hence my interest in Williams, Creeley, Niedecker, etc... Coolidge I like both short and long. I started playing drums because of him. What better inspiration? And all that cave and mineral imagery...