mention someone on your blog and they're guilted into mentioning you, that is, me. now, it feels icky referring to a post about me but plunge on captain of this instant, is what I say. David uses the term 'theatre of isolation'. just as Ginsberg was theatrically public, one can be theatrically isolated as well. or theatrically private (perhaps Plath, if you get me). that I wrote, and still do, in a theatre of this particular condition is just the way I ventured. I won't try to assess the virtues of this, that would just be theatrical. when I read "Easily Perfected" at Christina Strong's a week ago, I noted spontaneous approval. it's a poem I love, even having written it, and I felt the moment of giving it, in this instant, to Tim, but still. I knew only 3 people there and hadn't even mustered my most sociable note, so it's the naked little poem on its own. the Instant Red piece I have going on yet another blog (it's not written on the blog, unlike R&S, for instance), came out of my reading of Alfred and Guenevere. (am I about to tangent with centripetal force or will I bring this back to some initial 'point'? blimey, I dunno!!!). that novel throws away the fancy stuff. the important themes reside below the surface, mostly, only scarsely poking up disconcertingly. an effort on Schuyler's part to free himself from the exigencies of the novel. Ashbery notes in his intro that the original publisher included quaint illustrations under the inpression that the book was intended for children. I remember reading that version years ago, and yes, the illustrations hearkened more to Madeleine or whatever pleasant children's stories. so that I wondered some if I was getting the book right. Brainard maybe would've been a likelier choice for illustrations, if illusrations were needed. and I'm sure I have a point here, even if I haven't unravelled it. I know there are social exigencies to be wary of, poetrywise. that the influence of influence can overwhelm. O'Hara seems to've been pretty darn social, but think: O'Hara was napkin poet par excellence. he wrote poems and forgot about them. I think that forgetting was a way to detach the social influence. a way of letting go of the specific impulse, there 'midst all those New York geniuses. does that make sense? I mean, does what I posit? because I see the possibility of freezing in place thru too much positional discussion of the sort artists will produce and engage in. O'Hara's freedom exists in his letting the poems go. write it then throw it in a drawer. is there a fresher poet than O'Hara? I think of 2 Lowells. one the New England isolato, the other the learned literary craftsman. there's an impulse in Lowell to labour earnestly within the social circle of 'The Classics', and there's an impulse, contrary, to rifle his ex-wife's letters and crack up. to my eyes, the earnest labourer won, but I note that Lowell pushed towards the outer circle. eccentric. one sees the same with Plath. I wonder if I am even surrounding a point here. I don't want to be theatrical. limits are what each of us are in. thanks to David for the notice.