Change of Format

I've been a terrible blogger lately. Basically I haven't had time to write, or haven't prioritized my time that way.

But I still very much like having a blog, and am still very committed to reading blogs.

So, I'm going to try something new for a while. Basically, I only feel like blogging about books, so, henceforth, this blog will contain lists of books I'm reading and want to read, along with selected commentary. I know it may seems presumptuous to assume that anybody wants to know what I'm reading, but I like reading lists, and one of my favorite things about blogging is how democratic it is: if someone don't like my blog, they can simply ignore and no one is hurt.

So, we'll see how it goes...

I've been reading a lot of John Steinbeck. Almost done with EAST OF EDEN. I gather, from a tiny bit of reading on Steinbeck, that critics were unsure about his work during his lifetime. I can't quite see why, though I'll have to read up a bit more. He seems to me to be among the best novelists I can think of: poetic, lyrical, able to create believeable, engaging characters and to tackle the biggest of themes.

Here's the link to an interview I did for PW with Nathaniel Mackey last week just after he'd won the American Book Award for poetry.

Happy T-Giving

National Book Awards

Attended the National Book Award ceremony tonight. It was actually quite moving. Mark Doty introduced Adrianne Rich, who won their lifetime achievement type award. Then the New York Review of Books won an award. David Remnick of the New Yorker gave a moving tribute to the NYRB.

Nathanial Mackey won for poetry, which is something of a happy surprise. Gluck was the likely winner (I love Averno and would haved been happy if she won, though she by no means needed the prize), and there was also the young Ben Lerner among the finalists. I think Mackey's win is a wonderful step for experimental writing, and should draw some much-deserved attention to Mackey's career.

Richard Powers won for fiction, which was not a surprise.

Just up today is a piece I wrote for the Poetry Foundation website about Williams Carlos Williams.

I've got to stop telling folks to check things out.

Reading Steinbeck--THE WAYWARD BUS about a family that runs a sort of truck stop and bus station in the middle of nowhere california. Don't know what happens yet. But I like Steinbeck very much. His prose is simple, but still ornimented where it needs to be, full of metaphors, and forceful. Something makes me want to compare him to Hemingway and to say that I'm enjoying him more than Hemingway. I have this idea that Hemingway had to work very hard to make writing come out and that Steinbeck was someone who just issued prose. That's not based on anything, just a notion I have from reading them.

When you have a moment, please check out the new issue of THE BROOKLYN RAIL (available online, and in old-fashioned print around NY) in which I've got a poem.

*Please check out the new issue of LA PETITE ZINE (www.lapetitezine.org), with a long poem by me, and great poems by friends Stefania Heim, Thomas Hummel, and Jasper Bernes, as well as wonderful poems by others.

*Reading INTO THE HEART OF BORNEO by Redmond O'Hanlon, a funny travel book about two Englishman's journey into Borneo. Along with the author, poet James Fenten goes along on the trip. I'm also reading through Fenton's new SELECTED POEMS, out last month from FSG. Fenton is an important poet in England, who writes cleverly and movingly about war, among other things.

*Sat on a panel this weekend for CLMP about poetry reviewing, along with Herb Leibowitz of Parnassus and Albert Mobelio of Bookforum. I hope we gave the attendees something useful. It was certainly fun for me to talk that much about reviewing, which has become an increasingly important part of my writing life, and a way to read better and better. It's a practice I recommend highly.

THING TO CHECK OUT

* My good friend Gibson Fay-LeBlanc's interview with Dan Chiasson @ Guernica


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a reading update upcoming.

Reading BIdart's earlier poems collected in IN THE WESTERN NIGHT. In these poems, BIdart is as intense as he is now, but far less obscure. The first two books nakedly wrestle with Bidart's relationships to his parents. There are also extremely disturbing poems about insanity, the best of which is "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky," a dramatic monologue spoken by the early 20th century dancer and choreographer, as well as by his wife. Over 30 or so pages, it narrates his building awareness of his own insanity as it relates to his art, a subject that seems dear to BIdart. There is also the stunning "Confessional," an attempt at reconciling his anger at his deceased mother.

I find Bidart's intensity almost contagious. When I sit down to write after reading him, I feel crazed, almost out of control. Frightened of him and myself.

I love the newer books, especially "Stardust," but often find myself lost in the longer poems, which are usually tied to other texts. But, still, that palpable intensity remains. There is no poet like Bidart. The influence of Lowell is obvious, but no one has taken these things to quite the lengths Bidart has, even, perhaps Lowell (though Lowell's gruesomely confessional sonnets are probably more crazed, and destructive, than anything Bidart has done, or is likely to do).