and suddenly I wanted to know: what are your top 10 favorite poems, all of you, especially those of you linked to on the right hand side, and particularly writers of poetry like bhikku, axt, lauren o., stephen if you're still out there, pica, paul, and mary? Is it evil to keep on passing on memes? I am just always floored and amazed at how much i can still learn, even from friends whom I've known for years and years . . . .

Still on a Steinbeck kick, so this morning I read (watched) Ed Ricketts die for the third? fourth? fifth? time. . . . When it happens in your mind, you can't turn away from it, the way you can turn away from that tremendous mural on the wall in Monterey. And I feel almost as though he's alive now, after watching him die so many times, slight priest of the ocean, half Christ half goat.

In my spare time, filling old business cards with lines copied from Charles Wright with a blue ballpoint pen. Papermate. When finished I will mail them to Julia.

And trying to chew on something that I can't see around. Something impossibly difficult and wonderful. A joy and a promise. Maybe by the end of the month I will have it down in some form that I can share with you. Especially if I can make it out to the ocean between now and then.

As for my top 10, many of them in my archives (scroll down to the "poems" heading), it'd probably be something like:

john berryman - too many of the dream songs to list
elizabeth bishop - in the waiting room
robert lowell - skunk hour
jorie graham - imperialism
mary oliver - wild geese
frank bidart - self-portrait 1969
david schubert - prospect park
theodore roethke - north american sequence, in particular the far field
ingeborg bachmann - no delicacies
wallace stevens - sunday morning

say

1. randall jarrell – 90 north
   —    05.07.29, 1:24pm    #
2. garcia lorca – new songs
   octavio paz – response and reconciliation
   czeslaw milosz – on angels
   winter fear – kay ryan
   young apple tree december – gail mazur
   pity this busy monster, manunkind – ee cummings
   random interview – pat lowther
   tender buttons – gertrude stein
   starlight – philip levine
   the singing – ck williams
   — steve of the desert    05.07.29, 10:16pm    #
3. Why, Mr. Laidlaw! Thank you! I am reading through your recs right now…
   — Miranda    05.07.30, 1:44am    #
4. track, back
   — Paul    05.07.30, 12:12pm    #
5. paul/pica: very cool classics here. It’ll take me a little while to track all these down…
   — Miranda    05.07.31, 9:18pm    #
6. will get to work on that. aside: is it wrong to giggle at the spoken sound of “pica, paul, and mary?” since i decided on the way to work this morning that the missus and i should call ourselves j-lo, my vote is no.
   — kidchamp    05.08.01, 10:34am    #
7. Oh yes, you and your memes are evil. Curse your poems. I’ll have to think about it and try to get something done before I go on holiday. Luckily for me, not you, some of mine are the same as some of yours, and you reminded me of them.
   — bhikku    05.08.01, 10:35am    #
8. However ‘tis done, and done quickly :)
   http://www.bhikku.net/2005/08/01.html
   — bhikku    05.08.01, 11:21am    #
9. bhikku: Fantastic taste, my friend, if I do say so myself… Hot damn! Autumn Day! You scooped me on that one, it totally slipped from my memory.
   
   kidchamp: I’m glad you caught that, you’re the first one to notice!
   — Miranda    05.08.01, 11:53am    #
10. ta-da! see entry for 08.01.05.
    — kidchamp    05.08.01, 5:40pm    #

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