Some new, or fairly new, Rosemarie Waldrop poems on the New American Writing website. Just can't get enough of her. Her work, as well as her husband's and a number of other like-minded (if that term is fair when it comes to such individual minds) writers', has become increasingly central to my poetic cosmology.

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And this too--a book for the smart person's bedside table. Australian Critic Clive James (who made his name in England) has written a mammoth book of short essays about major 20th century cultural figures, from Kafka to Borges to Diaghilev to Miles Davis. In the 6 or 7 pages of each essay, he gives a short sketch of the figure under consideration, then proceeds to digress his way to a concentrated opionion. Strange, challenging, and certainly satisfying.