Composition (manifesto 4)

In poetry every word, every punctuation mark, counts. Even the typeface matters. That a noun is masculine or feminine has no particular importance as an inert linguistic fact, but in a poem a masculine and a feminine noun cannot be interchangeable. If you are a scholar of poetry, then you know how to pay close attention to every word and every space. You have, then, a certain prose responsibility to poetry. You must write well and accurately. You don't have to be a poet, but pretty close.

Everything I regret in my own work is the result of failure to live up to this ideal. I realize others don't share it, and I won't worry about them for the time being. I remember being outrage when a doctoral student used the word "thusly" in a chapter. That was an exaggerated response, but I still would never use that word.

Manifesto (3)

Reading poetry is a ruminative activity. Instead of being absorbed for hours in the reading of a continuous narrative, you read very short texts over and over again and then think about them for a long time. To read (really read) vast quantities of poetry is guaranteed to make you somewhat insane, since it invites solitary rumination. In my case, I am often reading three or four books of poetry at a time. Sometimes I read through a book in one sitting, or a few sittings. At other times, I'll read a few poems a day from a book. There seems to be a contradiction between the concentration required to even read a few poems well, and my desire to have read and to be constantly re-reading every significant poet in great depth. I am now the only poetry specialist in my department, so the effects of isolation are even greater.

My stock trades

I have a method for investing in the stock market. This is not my normal TIAA=CREF retirement but just a few bucks that I took from my savings account. I buy a stock for about $1,000 or 1,500 and then wait. If a stock does very well, earning me at least 1,000, I sell that thousand off and buy something else, thus diversifying my risks. I have done that 3 times in total, twice with my best performing stock. I also reinvest all dividends.

The other way would be to cash in on any substantial gains, removing that money from the total pot. But money just sitting in the bank loses its value to inflation so that is a guaranteed loss.

If a stock does poorly, or gains more slowly, I just let it ride indefinitely. Since there is a transaction fee for selling and buying, I have to factor in that before I know I have made money. That fee also makes me more disciplined in not doing a lot of smaller trades.

With one mutual fund, I buy $50 dollars automatically every month, or $600 a year, so my total stake increases there. If the market is doing worse, then I am buying this fund at a lower cost.

If I needed money for an emergency beyond what I have in the bank, I could sell a stock that has done well, but not too well. The most I would lose with the total bankruptcy of a single company would be about 1,500 of my original investment. This is a form of very conservative gambling. You don't lose the bet unless you are obliged to sell an asset for a loss, but you can always win by selling an asset that has gained value. That means that the trick is not investing money that you need to use right away.

Freud / we know nothing about the brain

I was sitting at a table with two sociologists, including my friend Bob A.. I was reading a magazine but I decided to join their conversation so I started to argue with the other man (?) about Freud, whose name I had just heard in their conversation. I claimed that Freud had to be read through his epoch, while ? argued that Freud transcended his own times, that the key to reading him was to not historicize him. I made the polite remark that it was interesting that we had such polar opposite views. I started to say that we knew so much more about the brain now than in Freud's period, but the guy responded "we know nothing about the brain!"

Pork loin

I brined a pork loin in a brine of soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, fruit juice. I rubbed some paprika and rosemary on it and grilled it on my gas grill until slightly pink in the middle with some small sweet potatoes. I had a salad too of fresh greens, parmesan, and cherry tomatoes, with a honey mustard vinaigrette, and some green beans sautéed with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and Indian spices (cumin seeds, coriander, cardamon, hot pepper flakes, turmeric). I called a beautiful woman up to come and share this with me, with some Free State Stormchaser beer. Keith Jarrett's Standards in Norway played in the stereo. Life is good, my friends.

71. Arden las pérdidas

Gamoneda. Tusquets, 2003.

This book largely recycles images and motifs from Libro del frío and Un armamrio llano de sombras. "Some afternoons, Billie Holiday puts a sick rose in my ears." Blake's sick rose?

72. Edenia

Padorno. Tusquets, 2007.

This is a strange and beautiful book of poem organized around a central conceit: an imaginary, Edenic world with ample descriptions of plants, animals, terrains... Manuel Padorno was a poet from the Canary Islands and I don't know much beyond this book. It isn't quite great poetry, because it ends up being too descriptive and loses energy too often as a result.