Elinor Nauen

Two poems I read yesterday were dissatisfying for opposite yet complementary reasons: one was all language, not anchored to anything real; lovely language but not about anything; no subtext. The other poem described a real event but there was no language, also no subtext. Neither was larger than its limited self. Both of the poets have said at various times that they don't like to get specific; they don't want to name the thing or the time. 

Update: I just found the perfect quote for my response, from James Parker in The Atlantic: A random-feeling extrusion of lyrical matter, like something that might come out of the tube when you pull the lever marked POETRY.

P.s.: He was talking about the very young Robert Frost. 

I like doing one thing a day, with lots of time to lounge around. A little work, a lunch, a reading. I hope it's always like this. Yesterday it was a Greek lunch with my friend from high school & her husband. They live in Idaho but are in New York a lot. Also, they are Greek, which is how she explained wrestling the check away from us: Greeks pay at a Greek restaurant! Today a little wingding with a bunch of poet friends, tomorrow a poetry event at the Graduate Center.

Swirling around everything like a gathering storm is, of course, the political news. That's harder to talk about but everyone I know has been jolted to resist! resist! 

The last read of the second season of Bob Rosenthal & Ed Friedman's series at the Bowery was a terrific wrap-up to what's become a warm community event. Ed gave a fun & varied overview of decades of his work, & Bob & Bob Holman (with Shelley Kraut) performed excerpts of 4 of their plays. Bicentennial Suicide was before I lived in NYC & I'd never seen it. I was in Clear the Range in 1979(?) & sang along last night with "Cole Younger." I remember everyone except me in Clear the Range had acted professionally & they were all good. I don't know why I was in poets' plays. In general, people cast me because I wasn't shy I would be a good actor but I wasn't. That or because I would take off my clothes. 

Once in a while it's lovely to lie around for half a day, my hand on Johnny's smooth chest while we read & chuckle & share what made us laugh. I love that man.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

~ Thomas Edison

On the other hand, many of life's successes are people who realized that failing was just as pleasurable as succeeding, & mediocrity was plenty good enough. Who didn't beat their heads against a wall & still couldn't pull off whatever grand plan they had in mind. Success can be being OK with what you've got not striving after more. 

On buy nothing day (Friday), I shopped as local as it's possible to do, buying a loaf of Irish soda bread from Mary O, who expanded from selling a few loaves from her bar on Ave A, to a bigger operation in a storefront on 7th Street. It comes hot from the oven with Irish butter and Mary's homemade blackberry jam. Our nephew scored a scone or 2 when he was in town last year & it brought back his Nana (Johnny's mother) to his great pleasure. When Johnny brought home a loaf from the bar, a couple years ago it must have been, I told him to stop by every day & beg her to bake more. Too expensive, he said. I think a loaf then was either $9 or $12, which did seem ridiculous. Now she charges $30 (+ tax) & there's a line out the door till they sell out & shut down for the day.