it’s a read-off!

i’m reading several books at once. i digress a lot when i talk to people, when i write, so why not when i read? it’s not like i haven’t been doing it all my life anyway. but i met jj for lunch at tim and he told me he’s writing 18 books all at once at the moment. now that’s digression. none of which he’s finished but that’s beside the point. so i’m reading rimbaud’s penguin selected poems and letters, new edition in the horrible all black jacket (nice photo of young baby-faced rimbaud on the cover, askew bow tie), tom raworth’s carcanet collected poems that is so heavy (heavy papers) and brickish the spine broke only a few days ago after weeks of bending. not being able to read some words on the inside margins, it makes me glad to have decided not to buy the williams carcanet collected since that would’ve really broken my back at CDG. golding’s metamorphoses again because i read an essay on the greek myths by germaine greer in the guardian, such an easy read for some reason, and now i find i can read in the margins brief summaries of the stories  in the following lines, like “icarus dies”, and just read the ones that sound interesting. am still trying to finish max havelaar, it’s just that i’m not enjoying reading indonesian at the moment, it feels like breathing underwater. and burton watson’s columbia anthology of classical chinese po biz again, because i will never go thru a month without reading at least a su-tung p’o. john ashbery’s your name here because i want my name there, and pictures of brueghel even though i haven’t really touched that for a few weeks. but it’s always in my head.