On the Fritz in 1613

Another venue for 1613, inviting us to yoke things together by force.

Eden, Milton

It's too bad I never wrote a sonnet sequence in the manner of Trish (about Mary H) for Jen. If I did so, it would have to be about two innocent kids wandering into a sort of Eden, or an Edenic context, and then getting booted out. Eden and plebeian human reality are a macabre juxtaposition. What's in Equations and The Symbolist Book (Answered Prayers), and in the new sonnets (Something Solid), will have to suffice. If I was ever in a place to do a riff on Paradise Lost, it may now be much too late for goodbyes. Maybe.

The Symbolist Book

The book I wrote in State College in the 90s (Answered Prayers and Willard Preachers) manifests the blatant influence of the French Symbolist poets, principally Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. When I wrote the book ('95-'98), I wasn't necessarily ready for Keats, Wordsworth, and Milton yet. The acid-headed, hallucinatory antics of the Symbolists, however, were germane to me then very much. It helped that 90s State College was an acid-headed (or shroom-headed) kind of place, and the general ambiance was a phantasmagoric one.