okay, also wanted to mention Ivan Argüelles. his Madonna Septet and Tri Loka are intense great pools into which. profound and profane, really lovely. I admire these long, dense, deep books. I've been (merely) poking thru Making of Americans, feeling thrilled. formidable poetry, rather than pleasant, interesting nuggets. all of these are prose writers. I think novels (of a sort) have been influential to my own work. such as the work of Melville, Woolf, Stein, Proust, James, O'Brien (he's great!), Faulkner (okay, not trustworthy but I still catch something), Joyce. I like adventurous novels. think of Woolf, who seemingly set herself a problem of form with every novel. and then nerved herself thru the process of writing the thing. Peter Ganick often sets himself a formal problem as he begins. likewise many of the LANGUAGE poets, particularly Silliman and Bernstein. there's adventure in that, in a muscular, crucial way. Moby Dick and Proust and James all represent immersions deep into their subject. all of which rings poetic to me. Argüelles is lyrical and intense and all along processual in a way that I love and respect.