The Clairvoyant Zoopraxiscope

Can someone be said to be happy who has never known what it is to be sad? Old question, I know, but I'm thinking of, like, babies.

I've often thought that when we're tired, there's some problem we're not dealing with, or not facing, and the thought of dealing with that problem is too much too handle. Oversensitive comment? Yes. But true? Maybe.

Adding to the mix Poems in Spanish by Paul Hoover. The "hook" of the collection is that the poems all sound as if they were translated from Spanish. When Kenneth Koch was my teacher, 18 years ago, he used to hold that tone up as a standard, so I guess the book isn't as exciting to me as it could be. Still there are some very smart, even "cool" sentences here, such as:

Nothing is less erotic than a paragraph.

Poetry is desire having words with itself.

Nothing is worse than a reasonable poem.

The century is thick with history
and the worst intentions.

Have finished the Patchett (The Magician's Assistant) and have moved on to Auster's The Brooklyn Follies. Auster is a writer I like continually, despite the distrust he seems to receive from various circles. I tend to respond to the strength of a well-told story, which, in his hands, often turns into something strange and rather perverse. I'm interested in that metamorphosis. You can see it in others (David Lynch, Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami), but in Auster it's particularly interesting because of the efforts he exerts to make us think that's not what's happening. Anyway, the new book is good, for now.

Next: the story of two battling coffeemakers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The business of poetry really is mean-spirited. The only time our ears perk up is when we hear about someone's lambasting of someone else's work, or when we witness, or engage in, lengthy angry exchanges about subjects which, really and truly, should not be raising such ire. Why is this? Is it because the writing of poetry is, like most other worthwhile pursuits, listless at times, and we're desperate for excitement? I don't think so. The positivity of the moment, this time when so much poetry is being published, when someone might actually say to him- or herself, "I want to be a poet," and then have the option to pursue that interest at a rapidly growing number of institutions, is drowned out by the negativity of poetry's periphery--which is becoming harder to ignore--or rather, harder and harder for Poetry to hide as part of its baggage.