a period of scattered reading for me lately. was reading Zukofsky's A, after Stephen Vincent's mention. what got me into Zukofsky were his long thin poems, that are both spare and expansive. I have periodically taken on A but it is monumental and I could use more mapping. read a little Galway Kinnell, a poet that seemed to be present back in the 70s. I mean, ther he was, not that I liked his work. popems carefully mined from experience and critical values, something like that. which sounds positive (transform those words into a blurb) but I just think of such writing as precious on the dull side, or just distant from my interest. I don't mean to clobber. the craft is to set up a persona of experience, something like that. draw on one's reading and general art exeriences, chopped the lines just so, whatever. I read a little Plath and found myself taking to it more than I expected. those poor poems are inescapable from the life story we've got of her. but she has craft. I think she, like Hart Crane, held onto the patriarchal too much. both seemed burgeoning to break from that but didn't quite. just leaping from tree to tree for me...