pile of reading

Ah, faithful readers, I work on through books, yet don’t talk about them! These are those whose pages turn:

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson
I have been reading ED’s Complete for some years now. Nine times out of ten she leaves me cold, baffled. When I don’t understand a poet there can be compensations of another sort – word music, play, surprise. With Emily I’m mostly surprised when I can figure one out. Lately I’ve been reading two pages a night so I can move the placemark along. Otherwise I keep rereading the same page, having forgotten everything about the poems there.

The Mouse and His Child, by Russell Hoban
Not sure quite why but I’ve long wanted to read this book. Because I like the title?

Poetry International #11, 2007
Literary annual of San Diego State University.

Eye of the Whale: epic passage from Baja to Siberia, by Dick Russell
Am making plans to visit the gray whales at their nursery lagoons in lower Baja California.

Within a Budding Grove, by Marcel Proust, C.K. Scott Montcrieff translation
Yes, I am 20 pages into the second volume of Remembrance of Things Past.

Premonitions: the Kaya anthology of new Asian North American Poetry, edited by Walter K. Lew
Pretty good so far.

The Book of Boy Trouble, edited by Robert Kirby & David Kelly
A best-of selection (with new material!) from the mini-comic anthology series, Boy Trouble.

Sunflower Splendor: three thousand years of Chinese poetry, edited by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo
I finished the poetry part of the anthology and thought I was just going to skim the biographical material in the back. But I’ve been enjoying it too much to skim.

In the Hub of the Fiery Force: collected poems 1934-2003, by Harold Norse
Am acquiring a taste for Norse. Not loving these, but sometimes I find myself liking a 3-page poem on page 2.

what's new

On my home from the dentist today I stopped in at Pegasus Books on Solano. They had a nice copy of Ginsberg’s Collected Poems, 1947-1997. For a long time I’ve been thinking of reading Ginsberg. More out of curiosity than affinity, though lately I’ve encountered poems in anthologies that have made me more interested.