I'm starting a new series, today, 9,000 books of poetry. I'm still reading novels, but I still once in a while read books of poetry too. Once I get to 9,000 I'll stop (for a while).

*(1)

Ron Padgett. How to be Perfect. 2007.

I read this in the public library while Julia was in her trumpet lesson, often laughing out loud as discreetly as I could manage. Padgett has perfect pitch for a certain kind of poem. Kenneth Koch is a big presence in this book. The title poem is an advice poem along the lines of "Some General Instructions" by KK. There's also a poem in which he compares his own method for writing with that of Koch.

"4:50 and dark
already? Everyone
wants to be beautiful but
few are. 4:51
and darker."

--Ron Padgett

This is marvelous and fresh, I would submit. There's a lot going on here. There is a difference between playing at poetry--and making it work-- and playing at poetry in order to trivialize it. Jordan's "right of the poet to be a fuck-off" but not the "stereotypey version of this right."