name yr poison

yesterday i got in the mail the spring 2010 [ain't it a trip to write that date? does it not sound/look so futuristic -- like we should be riding in air cars a la fritz lang's metropolis and spending long weekends on moonbase alpha?] catalog from small press distribution. i took it to bed and made mental notes ticking off what books i'd like, such as permit by rob holloway [you can read sections from holloway's poem here].

what a bounty of books. makes me dizzy. reading book catalogs for me now is like looking at porn when i was a wee pup. there's a kinetic, visceral high that is muscular and neurological. endorphins kick in and the head begins to pleasantly buzz as i read little capsule reviews of this and that tome, this writer and this poet.

holy shit. so many to choose from that i became dizzy. all the capsule reviews for each book is often a description of the kind of writing and a testament to the author's talent. moving from formal narratives to a lyric grace to a fractured postmodernity i began to wonder if it's all been done before. what can be new now, perhaps a return to augustan frippary?

i became anxious. when might've been the best time to be alive and writing? the elizabethan/jacobean period, downing a pint with mike drayton and marlowe? or perhaps the teens of the last century in zurich when anarchy was free freedom achieved with horrible obstinacy? or perhaps the best time is never and that what seems like a period of fecundity and experimentation was to those who lived thru it just as maddening and perverse as any time in history.

as i put the catalog down and drifted off to sleep the toxicity of my anxiety was leavened with a return to the sort of buzz i first felt upon flicking open the catalog to the multitude of choices. i said fuck it, name your poison. i can't help but be born in the time that is mine. that choice was made for me a long time ago. i don't subscribe to the idea of anxiety of influence. i've no idea about this time or any time. if every thing's been done before then why worry. just do it anyway.

i couldn't remember my dreams last night. it seems i remember my dreams only in periods of stress. i wasn't stressed out. not about my place in poetry or the position of any other poet either. i've given up on that a long time ago. if i have no competitive streak and that i have no worries about poetic history i do feel keenly about the quality and production of my writing and that of the writers i most care about. i care about the writers making the writing. no ideas but in things? i've never gotten that. both please, but when it comes to things or people i prefer the person to the thing.