At last night’s reading at The Hillsdale Library in Columbia County, New York, I read my poems before the poet and literary scholar Charles Bernstein read his work.
‘American in England’, which you showed me many years ago, still makes me smile! I appreciate the narrative voice — respectful and self-aware in the desire to belong and connect, yet not self-effacing. Do you now, years later, find yourself bumbling in the other direction, as I do? In New York recently I kept asking what ‘ward’ someone was in; then, while knowing it was wrong, I realised I could no longer locate the American word for a hospital ward: a unit? a floor? :-( I wish I could have been at your Hillsdale reading with CB. (I bought his book THE KINDS OF POETRY I WANT after you mentioned it in your newsletter, and found it so inventive, witty and wise, much like his A POETICS, which I love.) Many congratulations on BOAT OF LETTERS!!!
‘American in England’, which you showed me many years ago, still makes me smile! I appreciate the narrative voice — respectful and self-aware in the desire to belong and connect, yet not self-effacing. Do you now, years later, find yourself bumbling in the other direction, as I do? In New York recently I kept asking what ‘ward’ someone was in; then, while knowing it was wrong, I realised I could no longer locate the American word for a hospital ward: a unit? a floor? :-( I wish I could have been at your Hillsdale reading with CB. (I bought his book THE KINDS OF POETRY I WANT after you mentioned it in your newsletter, and found it so inventive, witty and wise, much like his A POETICS, which I love.) Many congratulations on BOAT OF LETTERS!!!