A diff'rent person than I was last year...
Finally, I can update the list of books I've read so far this year.
1. Beauty by Robin McKinley
2. The Coelura by Anne McCaffrey
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. An Assembly Such As This by Pamela Aidan
6. Duty and Desire by Pamela Aidan
7. These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan
8. A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
9. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
10. Cameo Diner by Matt Miller
I feel like I cheated, because the most recent one's a book of poetry that's taken me maybe an hour to read...but it was good, and some of the other books on this list are long, so it makes up for it. Also, a book is a book is a book. I shouldn't discriminate against it for being a book of poetry.
Besides, there were some really good poems in it.
Periscope
by Matt Miller
I've hoisted gods on my shoulders before
and so you've probably seen them dancing
above the crowd, effortlessly gliding over
the human sea like sweaty kids dumb-faced at
a July parade. I'm big and tall though so it's
really no effort and really gods are actually
quite light, much lighter tha you'd think, bones
like birds I guess, and I apologize if I ever confused
anyone or caused a cult or worse a religion, it's just
that as tall as I am I hoped to see a little further
but male or female, dog or cat, savior or trickster
or whatever combination thereof it was all
a waste of effort since once sprung forth or
pulled out from my squinting brow
and thrown up onto my back, they all turned out
to be blind, every last one of them.
The Mute
by Matt Miller
And he to me: These miserable ways
The forlorn spirits endure of those who spent
Life without infamy and without praise
They are mingled with that caitiff regiment
Of the angels, who rebelled not, yet avowed
To God no loyalty, on themselves intent.
--from The Inferno, Canto III
There are no boots marching, no steel
toes knocking at my door, no black coats
coming to arrest me, and yet I have stopped
in the middle of the song, turned quiet
at my turn. The scopes on the roofs are
not on me, they are not even my roofs,
and still nothing, no rhythm hung lyrics,
not even humming or whistling
against evening graveyards. Why am I
unbound yet so silent? Why, not yet tied
by bars or knives, with mud or dung
beetles, not soiled in search lights and
rusty puddles, am I so mute, so dumb?
So uncensored, why do I wither all
my untethered hours lying in the sand
by the summer sea? Horseflies chew
the salt from my skin, and I do nothing.
I got the book last summer from my teacher at Stanford, because it's his. It was so odd reading through the poetry and realizing that I had met the person who wrote it, especially because some of it, like the poems above and a couple others, seemed so important. I'm not used to knowing people who're important. And Matt never seemed that important, I mean he did but not in the crazily poetic way. So it was odd reading this and in my head hearing him saying it. But it was also really, really great.
On one of the last days at Stanford, my class did a poetry reading in the common room at Terra. Matt came by, and so did the Creative Writing program director, and we shared poems we had written while sitting on chairs and piano benches and the floor in a circle. At first no one really wanted to read what they had, but slowly we got off to a start, and we read around the circle, and some of the poems were powerful like this. And we all told Matt he had to read something of his, so he deferred that he didn't have anything on hand, but I had his book with me (because he'd given us copies a day or so before) so I handed it to him and told him to read, and he did. And when the book finally came back to me it was signed: "For Candace. I'll be watching for your work in all the mags and journals. 'I greet you at the beginning of a wonderful journey.' (I misquoted Emerson for you.) Best, Matt EPGY 2006"
I miss Matt, and Terra, and a lot of the people I met there. I miss Stanford: all of it. But I mostly miss who I was there. I miss being that girl. I know I can't go back in time, and I don't want to, but those three weeks made me feel so much myself, and I don't think I could possibly forget them.
1. Beauty by Robin McKinley
2. The Coelura by Anne McCaffrey
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. An Assembly Such As This by Pamela Aidan
6. Duty and Desire by Pamela Aidan
7. These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan
8. A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
9. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
10. Cameo Diner by Matt Miller
I feel like I cheated, because the most recent one's a book of poetry that's taken me maybe an hour to read...but it was good, and some of the other books on this list are long, so it makes up for it. Also, a book is a book is a book. I shouldn't discriminate against it for being a book of poetry.
Besides, there were some really good poems in it.
Periscope
by Matt Miller
I've hoisted gods on my shoulders before
and so you've probably seen them dancing
above the crowd, effortlessly gliding over
the human sea like sweaty kids dumb-faced at
a July parade. I'm big and tall though so it's
really no effort and really gods are actually
quite light, much lighter tha you'd think, bones
like birds I guess, and I apologize if I ever confused
anyone or caused a cult or worse a religion, it's just
that as tall as I am I hoped to see a little further
but male or female, dog or cat, savior or trickster
or whatever combination thereof it was all
a waste of effort since once sprung forth or
pulled out from my squinting brow
and thrown up onto my back, they all turned out
to be blind, every last one of them.
The Mute
by Matt Miller
And he to me: These miserable ways
The forlorn spirits endure of those who spent
Life without infamy and without praise
They are mingled with that caitiff regiment
Of the angels, who rebelled not, yet avowed
To God no loyalty, on themselves intent.
--from The Inferno, Canto III
There are no boots marching, no steel
toes knocking at my door, no black coats
coming to arrest me, and yet I have stopped
in the middle of the song, turned quiet
at my turn. The scopes on the roofs are
not on me, they are not even my roofs,
and still nothing, no rhythm hung lyrics,
not even humming or whistling
against evening graveyards. Why am I
unbound yet so silent? Why, not yet tied
by bars or knives, with mud or dung
beetles, not soiled in search lights and
rusty puddles, am I so mute, so dumb?
So uncensored, why do I wither all
my untethered hours lying in the sand
by the summer sea? Horseflies chew
the salt from my skin, and I do nothing.
I got the book last summer from my teacher at Stanford, because it's his. It was so odd reading through the poetry and realizing that I had met the person who wrote it, especially because some of it, like the poems above and a couple others, seemed so important. I'm not used to knowing people who're important. And Matt never seemed that important, I mean he did but not in the crazily poetic way. So it was odd reading this and in my head hearing him saying it. But it was also really, really great.
On one of the last days at Stanford, my class did a poetry reading in the common room at Terra. Matt came by, and so did the Creative Writing program director, and we shared poems we had written while sitting on chairs and piano benches and the floor in a circle. At first no one really wanted to read what they had, but slowly we got off to a start, and we read around the circle, and some of the poems were powerful like this. And we all told Matt he had to read something of his, so he deferred that he didn't have anything on hand, but I had his book with me (because he'd given us copies a day or so before) so I handed it to him and told him to read, and he did. And when the book finally came back to me it was signed: "For Candace. I'll be watching for your work in all the mags and journals. 'I greet you at the beginning of a wonderful journey.' (I misquoted Emerson for you.) Best, Matt EPGY 2006"
I miss Matt, and Terra, and a lot of the people I met there. I miss Stanford: all of it. But I mostly miss who I was there. I miss being that girl. I know I can't go back in time, and I don't want to, but those three weeks made me feel so much myself, and I don't think I could possibly forget them.