proximoception: (Default)
proximoception ([personal profile] proximoception) wrote2010-10-26 02:21 pm

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43. Nemesis
44. Prater Violet
45. Brand, Hill translation
46. Chekhov's Stories, Volokhonsky/Pevear
47. Nox
48. Fathers and Sons, Garnett/reviser
49. Narrative Poems of Pushkin and Lermontov, Johnston
50. The Unknown Chekhov, P. Constantine
51. Poems of Pushkin, Henry Jones
52. Selected Poems of Ammons, ed. Lehmann
53. Really Short Poems of A.R. Ammons

Mostly itty bitty books and mostly rereads.

Just The Steppe to go in The Complete Short Novels. My Life and Story of an Unknown Man are two of my favorite things in Chekhov so far, but The Duel and Three Years were also quite good. Steppe began beautifully. Seems entirely plotless, though, which has stuck me on it for a while.

Lehmann's selection from Ammons for Library of America was about 1/3 excerpts from long poems, mostly at the expense of his tons of short, perfect '60s & '70s ones. (A few of which are in Really Short but the title means it.) Lehmann did include some really neat late poems.

Long-form Ammons isn't bad, most of his long poems are a kind of casual wandering among surprises. But he's best and most accessible as an atomizer, akin to Calvino but even more atomic, and why a lot of his 1-2 page poems (Really Short = <1) haven't made him as popular as Frost and Dickinson confuses me.

[identity profile] grashupfer.livejournal.com 2010-10-26 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
One failure on
Top of another

[identity profile] proximoception.livejournal.com 2010-10-27 02:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, Really Short is half jokebook. He did some great ones about success.

[identity profile] grashupfer.livejournal.com 2010-10-29 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
I like most of Ammons and love about 40%. When he's great, he's almost unmatchable. City Limits never stops astonishing me and can pull me out of almost any rut. I sometimes read him and hear McCarthy phrases and wonder how much McCarthy read him.

[identity profile] proximoception.livejournal.com 2010-10-29 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
That proportion sounds about right.

McCarthy would love him. And it seems implausible he wouldn't have run into his work. They were pretty similar in some ways, though where McCarthy is among the most Ammons is about the least troubled of Romantics. By which I mean his many troubles never touch his Romanticism.

If I ever somehow corner McCarthy I'm going to ask about Calvino and Borges first though. That card thing...