Literary Dreams

Finished Ushant tonight. You know, Conrad Aiken, (wikipedia him) Started it backpacking in Yosemite in July. It is a really nice book, It was one of the ones I collected years ago when I was studying the prose of really good poets. Read Cummings, Thomas, Poe, etc. Had tried a couple times before on this one but never made it. The beginning is a bit dense. If you have read Lowery's "Under The Volcano" you will love this. It turns out Lowery studied with him. Anyway, a great poetic book of memories. Ah, the days of big dreams and learning form- when I was collecting these novels of poets I was writing one paragraph a night, searching for seamless prose.

There's a nice little fictional portrayal of me in Carolyn's book sitting at my desk before the window that looked out at Oakwood in Venice, writing my paragraph for hours. Not too much has changed except the inclusion of an hour on the banjo before my nightly typing.

"Under the Volcano" I read in New Orleans in my twenties. Really good book. Even better was a Lowery book I found in Monterey "October Ferry To Gabriola" the book he was working on when he died. Highly recommend that one.

Still writing- got about 70 pages into the 2nd draft of Daydee. Some of the first draft is here in the blog. I had to stop posting it because it was becoming a mess and I changed some the characters and some the plot halfway in.  "Daydee" is going to be the title I think.