Ann White’s piece on getting into the method of Louise Gluck is useful to me. Having read only part of one book by Gluck I wasn’t sure I could get a general sense of what she does since it didn’t grab me and I’m poor at keeping at reading something that doesn’t grab me. White’s sensitive reading in perspective of having read other works really helped get a context of what Gluck could be reacting to. Ann White also has some insight on how Mary Oliver’s Osprey works with a soft touch and slow draw.
When writers have written a lot it’s hard for me to decide how much I have to know to have a passable half-way acceptable level of knowledge. I suppose what I am doing to reacting to these words in this moment to me now. I don’t have to grasp the whole person. It doesn’t help to say that. I still feel like I’m reading blindfolded. Collected Works of Creeley for instance weighs in at 662 pages. Yes, I’m pagist but there’s a dauntingness to knowing how little I’ve read represents. Even if I finish these two books, drop in the bucket.
I’m way behind in non-paper reading but a month ago Anne Boyer said of writing down snippets of impressions,
To occupy oneself with projects of no interest to anyone is a generally winning idea. To be of no interest to anyone is a reliable evolutionary strategy as exemplified by birds whose feathers are the color of dirt, rabbits who turn white in the winter, green caterpillars, chameleons, etc.
I love the whimsy of putting these two ideas side by side. Writing ideas is a processing, a pleasure, an internalizing of the world with or without agreeing, or even being interested in it. It’s an acknowledging, coming into ideas, touching, interacting, being a unconscious and conscious part of the environment instead of pointedly ignoring and being mentally divided from where one actually is. Is it an evolutionary advantage to wear ideas that camouflage or are red vinyl ideas that don’t relate to the wetlands and fields? If one knows one is wearing what one is consciously as a counterpoint to better see the palette, does that change the relationship of fit?