I can only seem to blog on progress towards being able to get some work done. Last time I got my piano in, which is still dirty and in need of a tuning, now I can report book shelf fully stocked once again, and internet connection (woohoo!). Here's an idea for a simple project I might just follow through on. I'm going to e-mail a random sampling of authors on my shelf, whosever e-mails i can get a hold of, and tell them who they sit next to on my shelf. Here's one to Stephanie Young:
Dear Stephanie,
Did you know your anthology and your book from Tougher Disguises sit right next to each other on my book shelf. That's because I alphabetized volumes of poetry by author, but anthologies by title, thus "Young"-"Bay Poetics". I wonder if that will create voodoo that turns you into a narcissist. Probably not. Next to yourself, you are also next to "The Notebooks of Araki Yasusada", which I wasn't as interested in as I thought I would be. I think Yasusada is Japanese for, "ill-advised literary experiment", but no one reading it in English got the joke. Next to next to you is "Best American Poetry 1993". Can you believe I have that? What's even worse is that I've moved it three times and haven't thrown it away. How embarrasing.
I wonder how many other people have Young touching Young on their shelf. Probably only people who meet these conditions:
- read contemporary poetry
- are anal retentive
- don't own any Zukofsky
Anyways, I'm just sending this note to you because I plan on sending an e-mail out to every author I can think of telling her or him who she or he sits next to on my bookshelf. By the way, do you have an address for Mark Twain?
Dear Stephanie,
Did you know your anthology and your book from Tougher Disguises sit right next to each other on my book shelf. That's because I alphabetized volumes of poetry by author, but anthologies by title, thus "Young"-"Bay Poetics". I wonder if that will create voodoo that turns you into a narcissist. Probably not. Next to yourself, you are also next to "The Notebooks of Araki Yasusada", which I wasn't as interested in as I thought I would be. I think Yasusada is Japanese for, "ill-advised literary experiment", but no one reading it in English got the joke. Next to next to you is "Best American Poetry 1993". Can you believe I have that? What's even worse is that I've moved it three times and haven't thrown it away. How embarrasing.
I wonder how many other people have Young touching Young on their shelf. Probably only people who meet these conditions:
- read contemporary poetry
- are anal retentive
- don't own any Zukofsky
Anyways, I'm just sending this note to you because I plan on sending an e-mail out to every author I can think of telling her or him who she or he sits next to on my bookshelf. By the way, do you have an address for Mark Twain?
posted by Dillon Westbrook at 10:17 PM
4 Comments:
Dear Dillon,
Really? Yasusada is Japanese for "ill-advised literary experiment"? No shit. Thanks for the information. Thanks too, for writing. I like being part of your project.
My response, you will see soon, is an excercise in embarrasment, so why not confess that I own no Zukofsky, either! Were I to have the opportunity to shelve your new chapbook in the poetry section of my bookshelves, it would fall between Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth and the Selected Poems of John Wieners. I almost lied about the Wenderoth and used the title beside it, which is Barrett Watten's Bad History. That title would sound a lot better but I am committed to truthfulness here.
And truthfully I probably would not shelve your chapbook on my bookshelf right away or ever, it would probably languish for a long while on the low white table, and if I were to receive it this week, it would wind up stacked on top of books already stacked on the white table, such as Judith Butler's Undoing Gender, or Rachel Loden's Hotel Imperium, or Eleni Stecopoulos' AUTOIMMUNITY. It might also get stacked on top of this week's issue of the New Yorker.
If I backchannel you with my mailing address, will you help to ensure your chapbook is stacked or shelved in one of the above likey methods?
I hope so!
Stephanie
I mean 'likely'.
Do you alphabetize your records too? Does Taj Mahal go next to Cecil Taylor or Mahler?
Oh good, this made it
s way to comments- now I can reply not by e-mail, 'cus e-mail is still screwy. Yeah, send address (obviously not necessary through blogger post)- that would mean I have to get the chapbook finished.
I'm such a dork I have a second bookshelf for "things that don't get shelved yet", which now includes about 10 issues of Chain Juliana kindly unloaded on me, Anthology of New (American) Poets Chris Strofolino gave (and then told me not to read) as well as the stack of course books I've got to read before teaching begins again in January.
I like having a latter-alphabet name- things seem to move more quickly or something, like: Edwin Torres, William Carlos Williams Troung Tran. Or, up in philosophy, Santayana, Spinoza, Wittgenstien. As opposed to As opposed to Elliot, Empson, Duncan or Hume, James, Kant.
Germanic mutants of the world unite!
Oh and Erin, records haven't even been unboxed yet- I've got to develop a whole new catalog system, as I'm not sure what my genre theories in music are right now. But maybe the same project: Dear DJ Shadow, did you know you're next to Shastokovitch on my record shelf- I heard he was a real hit with the Czarina....
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