My bookshelf

. . . is pretty slight right now. I haven't made much time for reading in the last four or six months.

I've picked up Omens of Millennium again. I keep skipping around. Maybe next year I'll read it from beginning to end. But there are parts that I definitely want to get to, and some parts (like the portions about Freud's dream analysis) just aren't that gripping.

I've flipped through New Poems by Rilke. It's nice that the translation I have has the original German on the opposite page. It helps me to see the technical skill that Rilke had. I wish I could read German!

Hmm. Not much else. And I have lots of books to choose from.

But let me say that Omens of Millennium is great and I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in contemporary Gnostic thought. ("Contemporary Gnosticism" is almost an oxymoron, I know.)

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So I'm down to the wire. I had a sick day, so I'm trying to be productive while I have time.

I spent two more hours last night puzzling through my possible manuscript. *sigh* I hate being this judgmental about my own work. But at least I have editorial experience; I can tell myself, "Nope, not strong enough; the ending isn't right!; this just isn't ready to be judged by someone else."

So here are my ten poems:

Broken
U.N. Bombing, August 19, 2003
The Macaronica
Sole Instinct
Lazarus
Eyes Wide Shut, July 1999
Seeking Seminal Soulmate
[thighs widen, open]
residuum (original draft)
This Powerless Night

I'm iffy on several of these; I don't know how they will be taken. "Macaronica" is a glimpse at my silly side, but is it too silly/surreal? "thighs" is a haiku, and I don't know how wise it is to include a haiku; it's the only truly erotic piece in the manuscript. "This Powerless Night" might seem too much like a Stevens knockoff. The second guessing goes on and on.

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If you think I should reconsider any of these poems for inclusion in my submission, please please tell me. I'm going around and around in circles at this point.

Those Times. . . , by Anne Sexton

At six
I lived in a graveyard full of dolls,
avoiding myself,
my body, the suspect
in its grotesque house.
I was locked in my room all day behind a gate,
a prison cell.
I was the exile
who sat all day in a knot.

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