pile of reading

The New Teen Titans #29, 1983

I’ve been rereading my collection of The New Teen Titans. I didn’t have all the issues back to #1, so I had to start with a reprint collection. Then a second reprint collection. I had most of what was reprinted in that. I bought some back issues back in the day, so I don’t remember precisely which the first new issue I bought was. But I think I was buying the new ones as they came out prior to #29. I like George Perez’s art. The boys are fit and lithe and can be sexy rather than super exaggerated. Robin is hot enough, but I had a crush on the hairy short green Changeling. The girls are a bit more anatomically … um … idealized? Busty, that is. The writing? Oh Marv Wolfman. You and your ultimate evil. I think The New Teen Titans was my introduction to the DC Universe. Beyond the casual, that is. I was a Marvel kid. I was no fan of DC’s big two, Superman and Batman. Superman is too godlike. Batman is just a rich guy with a grudge. I was told The New Teen Titans was DC’s answer to The X-Men, and I was an X-ophile, so I gave the NTT a go. I remember being impressed. Maybe my opinion has changed?

Mojo Magazine #276, Nov 2016

The cover star is Lou Reed and the free CD that comes with the magazine is all Reed. I get Mojo from the library so sometimes the CD is missing. A bummer when that happens. Among the articles is one on The Human League. The song “MIrror Man” is either about Adam Ant or Boy George. Huh. “You know I'll change / If change is what you require / Your every wish / Your every dream, hope, desire.” 

Poetry East #88/89, Autumn 2016

This is the issue that includes my poem, “When the animals leave.” The issue’s cover theme is “Kyoto,” and the first section consists of Japanese translations, Basho, Hitomaro, etc. 

This Man’s Army: a war in fifty-odd sonnets by John Allan Wyeth

new introduction by Dana Gioia

I recently read a book of essays on neglected poems, Dark Horses. I was intrigued by the John Allan Wyeth poem Dana Gioia chose to write about. World War I is known for producing some famous poets in Britain. Not much from the Americans. But then America didn’t get into the war until late. John Wyeth’s book was reviewed when it was published but did not gain lasting fame. Even anthologies dedicated to war poetry by Americans have neglected him. This Man’s Army is more a diary in verse than a grand narrative or statement and the individual poems haven’t jumped out at me. But as a personal chronicle it’s worth reading. Wyeth’s writing is both distinctive and unadorned. 

Great Balls of Fire by Ron Padgett

I’ve liked the pieces by Ron Padgett that I’ve read in anthologies like An Anthology of New York Poets and From the Other Side of the Century. I copied out a poem from the latter anthology in 2016. In Great Balls of Fire I’ve found “Mister Horse” charming (“I get up and am seized by the present / Whose presence is / As a roof on a house whose car in the garage / Backs out”), whereas “Some Bombs” (“I ray you stop me pour the garter outdoors / Aw fond eel you all a quill train which darts”) was a chore (I think it’s a homophonic translation of a Reverdy). Most are somewhere between. 

Fodor’s Belize 2014
Since Kent and I both enjoy snorkeling I started looking into Belize. Now that anti-gay laws have been thrown out by their supreme court, Belize has moved off my shit list. Belize has the second largest barrier reef in the world, they say. Lots of impressive stuff easily accessible. They even have Mayan ruins.