april the poetry month.

One of my pet peeves is hearing the phrase, "i don't get poetry." I know why this phrase bothers me so much: I know exactly what that means. As much as I like feigning ignorance and giving quizzical looks every time I hear someone say that they won't read poetry because they don't "get it," I must admit to often feeling the same. I like the sound of but truly don't get Sylvia Plath. I read Ariel like my Spanish Lit books: in awe of the sound and certain clever phrases but knew deep inside that I would have to read the English translation before class and really I can't major in Spanish Lit.

But it still annoys me when people say that. I think people don't give poetry a chance. It really puzzles me how avid readers who read through many awful fiction and nonfiction don't try more than three poets.

Okay, poetry does make us feel guilty. It's a prime suspect for inspiring, "oh I really should've read this person" feeling. And it also makes otherwise over-educated people feel stupid: "I don't get exactly what this poet is saying here and I have a nagging feeling that every other word is some sort of a metaphor I can't get." Now in our culture, it's okay to not get the first law of thermodynamics because, ya know, there's calculus involved and such, but poetry is just a string of words and not "getting it" makes people feel illiterate.

But how can those same people then go and stare at paintings at museums for modern arts in various cities. Do you "get" those? Why is poetry different? Why don't we just enjoy poems instead of trying to get them as if we were desperately trying to be a part of an inside joke? Even though I often don't "get" poetry, I find that poems are all I can read when it becomes really difficult to read anything or when I feel especially despondent precisely because I don't have to "get" it.

Anyway, I am being bitter and judgmental because I can afford to be. I have a friend who includes a poem every once in awhile in his email (bry), another who handpicks poems for me to try according to poems I already like (alice, my personal netflix-like poetry recoomandation system), and a friend who sends me a book of Joseph Brodsky poems through snail mail (natalie). So it's easy for me to find poems to try.

But if you don't have friends who offer poetry, you can try The New Yorker. In fact, one of the poems I told Alice about was found in the magazine. Or you can try "The Writers' Almanac" with a daily poem on WNYC at 8 PM (precisely!). Okay, these sound like awful suggestions, sorry, but I hope people find poems they like if not for the intrinsic value of poetry in their lives then to feel less guilty about not having a favorite poem.

It's spring; it's the national poetry month; it's time to not suffer from a sense of low self esteem due to being word-challenged.

For me, I am celebrating the national poetry month (really for the first time in my life) by trying a new poet. After reading a NYT magazine article comparing Emily Dickinson to Twits, I thought she would be perfect for someone like me who is concentration-challenged. But when I tried to read her, I found that I didn't, what-do-ya-know, "get her." So I tried Joseph Brodsky (thanks again Natalie) and oh I get him, sorta, and I definitely enjoy reading him.

lonliness...

I found a perfect description of "togetherness":

"Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire."

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

I don't have any sibling and I am convinced that shuts me out of understanding a specific type of bond. but I have felt smug with a friend. And being alone is, more than anything else, embarrassing:

"I have often noticed that it is almost intolerable to be looked at, to be watched, when one is idle. When one is idle and alone, the embarrassments of loneliness are almost endlessly compounded."

Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson

I am used to being alone. I prefer it at times. When friends are not around, books can work quite well. The world watches you and you can feel it, but you are not idle. You are reading, or pretending to while considering their gaze and shifting your perspective so you can see how you must look to the others. I like to read, I like words, but also, I need my book to accompany me so that I am not lonely, I am not idle. I don't want to be caught on a bus twiddling my thumb. The iPod works pretty well too. but the words, the pages, they better isolate you.

I have been feeling uneasy this week and I couldn't quite identify what I was feeling. It wasn't good. It was something mixed with anxiety. Then I read Housekeeping and apparently I am lonely. Not for the lack of people. But because we are all alone in our pods, stuck in our perspectives. When I am acutely aware of my loneliness, it's hard to imagine what it's like not to feel this way:

"... once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery."

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

P.S. (4/4/09): Even holding a book in public is comforting because the book is my escape plan. The presence of words alleviates my fear of being stuck in a situation, in a world I can't escape. I guess this is simply a fear of commitment. I think my generation is deeply infected with this phobia. So we should all read and live in our heads.

a reference

I was so often reminded of my intent to read Middlemarch by many Middlemarch references everywhere. Now that I have read the said book, I have not found any... until now. In the March 22 NYT Book Review, Steven Johnson anchors his review of "How we decide" with a Middlemarch reference! ah... this is my first post-reading Middlemarch reference and it is so sweet. I understand what he was saying and, more importantly. I do not feel guilty. Now if I can finally read Proust...

By the way, "How We Decide" sounds like a fun book. I haven't read it but it seems like a book that resulted from "Predictably Irrational" and "Blink" getting married and having a baby.

acquisitions...

On sat.21.mar on the first day (or is it the second?) of spring 09, I have acquired the following pretty books (for between 4.95 to 6.95) at strand bookstore:

From knitting project photos

from left to right:
housekeeping by marilynne robinson
northanger abbey by jane austen
essays of e.b. white by e. b. white (mickey i am finally going to read the essay you sent me)
the learners by chip kidd

How do you know what to read?

I started reading Gilead entirely because of Alice. I've seen it in bookstores but the cover wasn't sufficiently pretty and the premise not terribly attractive. Besides, I am always skeptical of novels, probably because I have read so many terrible fiction. But anyway, Gilead was Alice's discovery. And because I like Alice, I trusted her and read the book. It is an amazing account of existence. That sounds really vague and pretentious. A better way to put it is perhaps that Gilead makes me want to write positive books and live a positive life. But the book is not cheesy. Really. Argh. It's hard to talk about Gilead. You should just read it and remember to thank Alice.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how we choose the book to read. It can be a daunting question especially for people who do not read. Whenever someone asks me how I know what to read, I give a detailed response devoid of an answer...I ramble on and on because I really should know the answer to that question. So sorry about that (esp to my students)! Well, I hope this entry sorta answers your question.

Picking books has become effortless. I have an ongoing list of books I want to read in my mind and on my Amazon wishlist (mostly because I don't trust my memory and neither should you). When I walk into a bookstore, I can identify right away the book I wanted to read, how much I wanted to read it, and whether or not the price is right.

But I guess what people are asking me is how I pick the books to go on the wishlist. Well, reading is addictive, isn't it? Initially, you have no idea what to read. But books pull you in. It's all very dangerous. You read an author you like, and then you read something else by that writer. Then you realized that you like to read a certain genre in general. You start reading the NYT book review every Sunday and drool. Your cool friend Natalie sends you Russian lit, and you are open to another genre. Then you find Alice's favorite book and you read it. Yea, that's what happens. The more you read, the more you know what book you will like before opening the book. Unfortunately, you inevitably do read a lot of bad stuff to get to this point.

And that's particularly discouraging, I know. It happens to kids. They read bad stuff (to them) in school and they think reading is bad. Adults too. They want to read. But there's a lot of bad stuff out there. They keep hearing about some awful fiction so they start reading it, get through the tediousness of it all, and well, by the end, they don't want to pick up another book.

But no, you have to plug on. Sometimes you pick a lemon, but that happens less and less as you become more experienced. I guess that statement can apply to every skill. So I guess my answer to THE question is that you kind of have to go by faith that the more you read, the more you'll enjoy reading.

Anyway, for fun, I am going to try to see how I picked the books I am currently reading and the books I have recently read:


Currently Reading:

"The Lost Art of Walking" by Geoff Nicholson: NYT Book Review + I liked one of his novel a lot + I am into walking now and thought maybe reading the book will inspire me to exercise more.

"The Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle: Alice got me in the mood for positive books + reading "Ours" reminded me of Natalie who asked me once if I had read this book + I really want to read Montaigne more but this book was shorter.

"Communicating Science" by Scott L. Montgomery: I like to read about writing than actually writing + book has info about academic publications that interested me.

"Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud: I had interesting dreams + I missed reading Freud + I missed reading psychoanalytic literature.

Books I Recently Read:

"Ours: A Russian Family Album" by Sergei Dovlatov: I missed Natalie + I liked his other book + it was short and I wanted to read something that I can finish in one day.

"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson: Alice Alice Alice.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories" by Robert Louis Stevenson: Reading Poe made me want to read scary stories + the book was small and portable + felt like reading some classics.

"The Raven & Other Poems and Tales" by Edgar Allan Poe: I missed my old gothic lit class + the book had a pretty binding and nice paper.

Okay, I can obviously go on and on and on but I get the feeling that this info is interesting to no one else. My survey seems to say that a mixture of these primary factors dictate my reading choice: past reading, recommendations (friends and reviews), nostalgia, and the aesthetics of the book. Coming up with the precise formula is beyond my math skills.

a cheap safe.

I definitely knew what Henry Alford was talking about in his essay, "You never know what you'll find in a book" in Dec 21, 2008 NYT Book Review. Books become a receptacle not just for the ephemeral thoughts of the writers but for the physical relics of the book owner. I have often inherited, when buying a used book, not just the book but receipts, notes, and bookmarks. And because of my promiscuous reading habits, my bookshelves have become a purgatory of bookmarks.

Here are some other things I found in my books: postcards; pressed flowers; letters; post-its with notes sometimes relevant to the subject ("review integration by parts!") and sometimes not (a first draft of a really bad poem); class notes; essay assignments; sleep diary entry; drawings; and my letters to o-chem.

And why not? A book is a marvel of engineering that holds a surprising number of things. Books are prefect for preserving and hiding (from self and others). So why not take advantage of these storage spaces? Here are a couple of things I am planning on putting into books:

1. Perfume samples in large textbooks: You know, those folded papers that hold the scent, usually found in fashion/women's magazines. I figured if I put them in my large (usually science) textbooks, I'd make the reading of thick textbooks a more pleasing experience. Some of these textbooks go on and on for a thousand pages or so and they don't treat you like a human being with feelings. Besides, reading a science textbook is more like reading a magazine than a book: The reading material is not linear on the page because you constantly have to consult the illustrations (figures); there are columns of writings; and pictures and graphs abound. At least the Women's or fashion magazines are lovely to read because the colorful layout is visually appealing and there is a whiff of something nice every time a page is turned. Now of course good magazines don't smell quite nice due to the lack of perfume samples (The New Yorker, for example) and some magazines are too saturated with the samples resulting in a crowded elevator smell. But the point is, maybe adding a little scent to the textbooks will make reading those books more fun.

2. Notes to the next owner of my books: I also thought about making the process of leaving things for the next owner more incidental than accidental. I think I should write a brief note to the next owner of the book. I guess something like , "Hey you, I am the previous parent of this book. The fact that you have this book probably means I am now dead. I loved this book so very much and I hope you enjoy it too." And if I ever get really famous, this person can get super rich by selling the copy on ebay.

the notepad technique

Even though I obsess about reading, I am a pretty inefficient reader. I envy my friend shee, who reads super fast.

My problem seems to be intruding thoughts. It's too noisy in my head even when I read. And any reading material spins out a web of thought all fascinating and entertaining to me but causes me to slow down to a grinding halt with the book. A sentence later, same thing happens. My mind is like a nagging child who won't let me read.

So I started employing the notepad technique: I have a little notepad with me when I read and when there is an intruding thought, some related to the reading some not, I jot it down and move on. My mind does protest--I have to think those thoughts NOW! But I assure her that the ideas will be there to obsess over after I finish reading so please leave me alone with my book or now.

This method once helped me in college when I had too much on my mind and had trouble studying. I hope it helps me become a more efficient reader as well. The danger of course is having too many notebooks where my thoughts and lists proliferate. I feel I spend more time planning than living.