Jonathan Mayhew read A Nest of Ninnies, but didn't like it. he preferred Schuyler's other novels. I liked A&G alot, really charming, and I haven't read What's For Dinner (great title tho: there's room in the novel world for the deflated). well, okay. JM says on his blog that he's read more than one Saul Bellow novel. one did it for me (The Dean's Winter, a truly lifeless piece of work), so I guess it's a matter of taste. sooth to say, Creeley's not to my taste. that's no denying Creeley's greatness, but I get more pleasure from O'Hara, say, than Creeley. poetrywise, at least. I really dig Creeley's critical work, including interviews. oddly, 2 of the most influential poem type writers for me are minimalist: Creeley and Grenier. Grenier as my only teacher sent me in directions that saved me from inflating Whitmanly, and Creeley just gave example. I was warmer to Olson's poetry but I needed to fight and wrassle with the Creeley oeuvre. and maybe I get caught up in the idea too much of poetry, when I just can't comprise the term in a usefully concise way. Mike Snider loves poetry and Ron Silliman loves poetry, that's absolutely clear on their blogs, but they don't love the same thing. not hardly. what I write, I've always called it poetry, but why is it poetry and not something else? I've written 7 novels (I know, hard to believe), 2 of which could possibly be worth publishing if this world fit my theories at all and if I, like, should show them to someone. all of them MUCH influenced by Ninnies. no plot, no character development, so what's left? I dunno, but it's my vision. that's what I love about Ninnies, and A&G too. so my poetry: my writing that hangs under that designation, it is what is available to me to write. I don't mean to make a boring statement like that. I still get bedeviled by form. why stanzas anymore? what's the dimension of a line? what does punctuation mean? these questions are easier to answer from formalist standpoint, but even there, got to twiddle with what's expected. well I guess I should cut this divagation short, I'm supposed to be writing about Jung.