But the funny thing is I couldn't remember which poem was being quoted. Heh. I had to open up my old Word file for my book and search for the phrase. This is not uncommon with my poems.
Well, you know, quotation is the sincerest form of flattery .... wait, that's not right, is it? Seriously, I can't remember which poem either. I dip into your book at random on a regular basis, and that just jumped out at me. There seems to be so much darkness about lately, and headlining your words is a great way to bite my thumb in its general direction. Your optimist poem is lovely, too. I want to believe.
Same thing with my poems, Paul. Or: have you ever had a line pop into your head that seems really familiar (or, better, really fantastic), think someone else wrote it, and then realize that you actually wrote it? Yeah.
Paul Guest is the author of four volumes of poetry and a memoir. His debut, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World, was awarded the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. His second collection, Notes for My Body Double, was awarded the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His third collection, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge, was published by Ecco Press/HarperCollins in 2008. His fourth collection, Because Everything Is Terrible, was published by Diode Editions. His poems have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. His memoir, One More Theory About Happiness, was published by Ecco in May 2010 and selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. The recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Whiting Writers' Award, Guest lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
3 comments:
Well, you know, quotation is the sincerest form of flattery .... wait, that's not right, is it? Seriously, I can't remember which poem either. I dip into your book at random on a regular basis, and that just jumped out at me. There seems to be so much darkness about lately, and headlining your words is a great way to bite my thumb in its general direction. Your optimist poem is lovely, too. I want to believe.
It's from "Elegy for Qwerty."
Same thing with my poems, Paul. Or: have you ever had a line pop into your head that seems really familiar (or, better, really fantastic), think someone else wrote it, and then realize that you actually wrote it? Yeah.
Post a Comment