Takes Away the Luster

Seattle is gray and cold, but mostly dry. Hard frosts in the morning. Great notebook-scribbling weather.

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This is a recording from 1959 of Flannery O'Connor reading A Good Man is Hard to Find at Vanderbilt University.

Probably one of the coolest things in the world right now.

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Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem—there has to be part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility.

-an interview with W.S. Merwin (which has sent me back to his books, which have me wide-eyed all over again)

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Killer first line of the moment:

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:

from Robert Frost's "Now Close the Windows"

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What They Say They're Fighting About: How we should analyze and grade poetry. It's pretty clear Vendler is more selective. Her argument being that letting everyone into the club, the list, or in this case, the anthology, takes away the luster from actually being included. And it's not unlike the same debates in the world of pop culture like the gripes with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or the selections process of an NCAA tournament, or a Michelin list. Dove's point obviously counters the notion that fewer is better, as she points out that Vendler loses out on diversity, and perhaps much more by focusing on her chosen few.

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How about some end-of-the-year lists?

NPR's Best Books of 2011

Paste Magazines Best New Bands of 2011

KEXP's John Richard's Top 10 Albums of 2011

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