I mean, hurled...

I guess I'll have to pick up a copy of My Life , draw my own conclusions (and if I don't like it I can trade it in for that Paul Lynde bio). I feel kind of silly not having heard of such an apparently major book. Maybe this is my karma for my shocked indignation when a woman I dated very unhappily for a very short period (I knew it wasn't going well when I would, quite literally, vomit every time I saw her) told me she'd never heard of Allen Ginsberg. And she was in the MFA program for poetry. And her excuse didn't help: "He's just a drug culture person."

On the other hand, it's not that surprising I haven't read any Lyn Hejinian. I'm woefully isolated from any sort of poetry world. My favorite bookstore, god bless it, has a woeful poetry selection, and I don't subscribe to any journals, and I don't know any local poets. Pitiful. Add to that fact that I'm a slow reader who has to read every poem twice through...very s-l-o-w-l-y, and you've got a guy whose not going to be as up to date as he should be. But I love tha verse. Deep in my heart, I love it. And I'm so excited to have people recommending books and poets and talking about craft and the state of the art. So I hope people who are up to date, people who have a million poetry links on their blogs and who are constantly reading good chapbooks, won't discount me. 'Cause I'm writing every day, and reading (slooowly) (right now, RK, I'm loving that Bill Knott), and trying to expand my poetrymind. And it helps that although I limit myself to one CD a week, and have declared a six month moratorium on fiction purchases, I allow myself to buy all the poetry I want.

Tomorrow I'll post my first poem.