I love the Ann Arbor District Library's free book cart. Today I picked up Milton's Paradise Lost & Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, Aristotle's Poetics, Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy & The Case of Wagner, and Dante's Inferno. I'd just mentioned to lameautarch that reading Kafka's Metamorphosis had rekindled my desire to read more classics, so this happy find goes far in satisfying that hunger.

In a complete change of subject, I wanted to correct my list of Christmas gifts: sarahmichigan gave me, in addition to the book of stamps (which will definitely come in handy), an attractive pocket-sized notebook and two gel pens. I don't know if she knew I loved gel pens, but I certainly do. It was a splendid gift package and I thank her for it.

In addition, lameautarch purchased The Poet's Companion by Kim Addonizio & Dorianne Laux, a how-to poetry primer with many creative exercises. He knew how much I wanted it because we were wandering around Borders together and I jumped up and down when I saw it on the shelf. I am very grateful to have the title in my poetics collection.

Edit: Now I have another book on my to-acquire list: Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within by Kim Addonizio. Damn you, Amazon.com!

"A successful poem is, as Williams said, a machine made out of words; if it is properly constructed it cannot fail to perform its function, which is to control its reader, by its selective and stylized processional means, that the reader 'cannot choose to hear.'" -- Helen Vendler, Contemporary American Poetry (9th ed.), p. 9.