Well, Tomaž Šalamun’s “History,” as I said. Beyond that, I am sort of constantly reading Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s two last books, Song and The Orchard. They are perfect books. I will never tire of them. There is actually a British edition that collects the two titles into a single volume. I printed a copy of Brigit’s uncollected poem “Iskandariya” and I use it as the bookmark in that volume, which I keep close to me. I had a period a couple of years ago where I reread Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris for a few months straight. It’s an immensely valuable book. Aside from how well she renders the conceit of the book, I marvel at how there’s no excess to it. In the last few years the work of W.S. Graham and C.D. Wright has become incredibly important to me. Their approach to language, literally at the level of the word, of thinking about words as objects, is important. And their approach to humor, not that people think of them as especially funny poets, per se. They’re not trying to get a laugh out of you, but they are often, on some level, amusing themselves, and there is a real intimacy in finding yourself equally amused. If I’m stuck while writing, I’ll pull some of the work of these writers off the shelf and see how they handle things. Not that they only serve the function of helping me as I write. I never tire of the pleasures of their work. The consolation of observing their ways of thinking.
Saturday, 12 September 2020
Charlie Clark : part four
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
Well, Tomaž Šalamun’s “History,” as I said. Beyond that, I am sort of constantly reading Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s two last books, Song and The Orchard. They are perfect books. I will never tire of them. There is actually a British edition that collects the two titles into a single volume. I printed a copy of Brigit’s uncollected poem “Iskandariya” and I use it as the bookmark in that volume, which I keep close to me. I had a period a couple of years ago where I reread Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris for a few months straight. It’s an immensely valuable book. Aside from how well she renders the conceit of the book, I marvel at how there’s no excess to it. In the last few years the work of W.S. Graham and C.D. Wright has become incredibly important to me. Their approach to language, literally at the level of the word, of thinking about words as objects, is important. And their approach to humor, not that people think of them as especially funny poets, per se. They’re not trying to get a laugh out of you, but they are often, on some level, amusing themselves, and there is a real intimacy in finding yourself equally amused. If I’m stuck while writing, I’ll pull some of the work of these writers off the shelf and see how they handle things. Not that they only serve the function of helping me as I write. I never tire of the pleasures of their work. The consolation of observing their ways of thinking.
Well, Tomaž Šalamun’s “History,” as I said. Beyond that, I am sort of constantly reading Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s two last books, Song and The Orchard. They are perfect books. I will never tire of them. There is actually a British edition that collects the two titles into a single volume. I printed a copy of Brigit’s uncollected poem “Iskandariya” and I use it as the bookmark in that volume, which I keep close to me. I had a period a couple of years ago where I reread Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris for a few months straight. It’s an immensely valuable book. Aside from how well she renders the conceit of the book, I marvel at how there’s no excess to it. In the last few years the work of W.S. Graham and C.D. Wright has become incredibly important to me. Their approach to language, literally at the level of the word, of thinking about words as objects, is important. And their approach to humor, not that people think of them as especially funny poets, per se. They’re not trying to get a laugh out of you, but they are often, on some level, amusing themselves, and there is a real intimacy in finding yourself equally amused. If I’m stuck while writing, I’ll pull some of the work of these writers off the shelf and see how they handle things. Not that they only serve the function of helping me as I write. I never tire of the pleasures of their work. The consolation of observing their ways of thinking.
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