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3 January 2005: A week or so ago, Geof Huth opined at his blog that poets ought not to brag about their work. I don't care much what poets do so long as to compose effective poetry, but enjoy arrogant bragging more than I do self-effacement. I tend toward a mix of both. As for how a poet should act, I guess what I would most prefer is simply honesty.
Which leads to some simple honesty on my part, ironically after what I've just said, some honest self-effacement. It seems I was reading Richard Kostelanetz's 35 Years of Visible Writing, which I plan to review in my next Small Press Review column, and came across a set of his "circular statements," which are locutions whose last words goes back to their first words and continue to make sense. One of RK's set, for example, is "THE POETRY OF LIFE COPIES," with "COPIES" circling back to "THE." My favorite of the set (which consists of four circular statements, one placed inside the other) is "ART CREATES WORLDS MADE ETERNALLY FROM."
This reminded me that Richard had recently e.mailed me (and a few others of his friends) a batch of such statements he is going to make a book of, wanting feedback. I found a typo and one near-duplication, so helped. But I also told him "WANDERING ABOUT WONDERING ABOUT" should be "WONDERING ABOUT WONDERING ABOUT." The latter is fun, but the reason I suggested it is because I couldn't make sense of "wandering about wondering"--because I kept reading "about" as only meaning "pertaining to," and having to use "wondering" as an object. I only just today, thinking I'd quote Richard's mistake here that I realized I had blown it. "Wandering about" as "aimlessly wandering" simply failed to occur to me till then.
How the mind makes mistakes like this seems to me as fascinating as how it
solves problems. Or maybe it's just that EVERYTHING I DO MAKES ME WANT TO ANALYZE."
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