While I ate my dinner of frozen pizza, fries, and broccoli, and after I checked the news on covid-19, I read a short article on 7 fiction books that change the way you think. I stopped short for a moment at number 5 – Ask the Dust by John Fante. Just a few days ago I was trying to remember the name of this book. I can’t remember the context of why I was trying to remember it other than I was trying to think of the book my ex-fiancee brought for me to read the first time we went away together to the Jersey Shore. We had decided we would swap some of our books and spend some time getting to know each other that way (we had only been dating for about two months). She gave me this book and a book of poems (that I also can’t remember). I know I liked this book, so it was really nice to see it on this recommended list, and even nicer to have my questionable memory jogged. As soon as I saw the title, I became appreciative of the things she showed me… even in our breakup, I am very appreciative for the person I have discovered. I don’t know that I would ever have read Be the Person You Want to Find, or any of the books by Thich Nhat Hanh, or gone on this kick of poetry had we not gone down the path we went down. Admittedly, for a long time, I was trying to be the person I thought she wanted to find – someone who paints and writes and reads and explores. But, as I’ve been discovering, these are all parts of me that already existed. I’m very much someone who wants to discover and share, who wants to swap books, and find ways to introduce new things to each other.
Returning to the list, I saw a Raymond Carver collection, Cathedral, that sounded interesting. I went on to my Kindle app to see if I could score a free copy somewhere. I couldn’t. As I was browsing I saw a free copy of a Mary Oliver collection of poems, Dream Work, and downloaded it. The first poem, “Dogfish” was great. Lines like “I wanted to hurry into the work of my life” and “I want to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the sun” made me want to immediately share… say hey, you should give her a shot – she seems pretty good.
I’ve been reading another book of poems, Periscope Heart. I like a lot of them, but there are certain phrases / objects that appear often throughout the volume (rib cage and rice paper). I remember the first few poems caught my attention, they seemed honest and vulnerable. After a few more poems, I felt like I was reading the same thing from time to time. This stuck out to me because it’s something I worry about with my own work – is it too repetitive, does it revisit the same subject too often, do I have words, images, phrases that I repeat from poem to poem? Inherently, none of those things are good or bad, but for me they became noticeable and almost distracting. As with a lot of the books I read, I almost feel like I need to read them a second time to pull out the parts that I like. Thinking back to the book by Fante – I couldn’t tell you a ton of details from it. I remember liking the story. I remember liking the style. I remember liking the person who shared it with me and liking them even more after reading it.
I’ll pause here for now to go back to Mary Oliver. Maybe I’ll come back and share some more. Maybe it’s time for another post of clippings from other writers.