Infrarealist Musings and Other Poetry

Two of the shorter short stories in the world are the known Hemingway: "For sale, baby shoes, never worn." (which he facetiously called his greatest work) and the Dinosaur by Augusto Monterroso, which goes: "When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there." Christmas stocking stuffers.

I don't feel like reviewing a book today but I will mention a few tidbits I've come across. Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview is an interesting if unfulfilling read. I wanted more intro with wider and deeper discussion. The first interview is great, the last that appeared in Playboy is terrible. I can't fully recommend anyone buying it.

I've gone back into Wallace Stevens. It's so great and subtle. There's even a Yale lecture in two parts on line, one presented by Langdon Hammer, and another by Marie Borroff the classics scholar. They're worth listening to on a snowy afternoon, especially if you like building snowmen -- Stevens said people should enjoy poetry the way a child enjoys snow.

I also came across the notebooks of Robert Frost, a thick book edited by Robert Faggen. It sparkles with thought and the little I've read has been pretty incredible. His work is stricter in every way than I would tend to head, but I grew up with this stuff and he was, for a while, in my neck of the woods.

Finally, and this is sort of off topic, I discovered Matthew Heard's article "What Should We Do with PostProcess Theory?" which is great. PostProcess theory considers that writing is not a skill to be learned, rather it's something to be exercised as a hermeneutic activity by "entering into specific dialogue" with other people and their interpretive strategies. Whats so wonderful about this article is that Heard speaks about tangible ways to utilize such a methodology in the classroom.

On Santa's naughty list: Those Idiotic Xmas Lists of the year's Notable Books.