gasps, thrills, fleshes

from the diary, 12/9/88: “In one of the textbooks this semester a poem is introduced and the editor gasps when he compares the poem to the version of the incident as it is recorded in the poet’s journal. The editor thrills at the way the poet actually remembers more than he wrote in his journal, fleshes the incident out in full detail [as compared to] a sketchy report in the diary.

“Hmf. Are there actually people this stupid? I have never been able to record an incident in full detail in one of my journals and sometimes I wonder why I bother keeping it because it is so inadequate, so often dull. I don’t have time, for one thing, to say everything; another is that when something has just happened I don’t have much perspective on it.”