Reading

In the American Tree, edited by Ron Silliman [I got through all of "West" on vacation and have been slower due to so many interruptions since I got back, just entering "East." And here is what I want to know: Why in my 10 yrs of formal literature/writing education I was never assigned this book rather than the freaking Norton for the 10th time? Huh?]

My Life by Lyn Hejinian. [See question above.]

The Manikin by Joanna Scott [A gothicky romance in the gothicky romance tradition, but with her own stamp. A creepy old mansion filled with eccentric millionaire dames, quirky subversive servants, lots and lots of freaky taxidermied animals including a totemic snowy owl, and young gothicky romantic ladies flirting with the love that dare not speak its name and overcome with a parallel desire to be modern. Not as taken with this one so far as by her Fading, My Parmacheene Belle but here, too, her sentences are wonders. Sniffy little scents of Henry James.]

The Best American Poetry 2005

And I just finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. [I enjoyed it greatly, though the contortions to which he had to resort because of his decision to use only nameless characters were kinda grating. And it was not as asskicking as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, if you will permit me such a hifalutin critical term.]