(My own copy)
If Hölderlin did it why can’t I do it too? Here it goes:
Yes, we need some good poets
And I think we all know it’s
Something we’re lacking….
My mind I am fracking
But still failing to see
how wishing makes it be.
They fuckitup,
We suckitup.
When I was young, appendectomy was done under local anaesthesia. I was so afraid, I might end up in a situation like that, that I memorised some of Hölderlin's poems in a Portuguese translation by Paulo Quintela, as ways of coping with my fear. I never had an appendectomy, but I still recite in my mind some of those long ago learned Hölderlin's poems when I have to sit in a dentist's chair...
When I was young I had this feeling of uselessness of having a book once I read it, so often I passed them on to my friends (for good). Nowadays I give away "bad" books, if I happen to read one (last one was "Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff - looked so fascinating with Trump on the cover looking like a weasel that I just had to buy it. I tried reading it, I really did, but couldn't finish it. I'm ripe for a piss take from all of my fellow blog readers then for having tried this stupid action... It turns out the book is just a sitting on a fence money grabber.)
(Bought in 2008)
I’ve got about physical 5000 books now (about 2/3 already read once or twice, or more), waiting for my retirement years. Maybe 60-80? If I don't make it, waiting then for my grandchildren, yet to be born...And a about 500 movies to re-watch: Pedro Almodovar, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Woody Allen, Chaplin, The 37 Shakespeare BBC movies, and more. If I go Alzheimerish, my kids are already instructed to keep my collection (books and movies) around me, whatever happens.
(Rilke's dedication to Hölderlin)
Some famous writer (Mark Twain? or was it E.M. Forster in “Aspects of the Novel”?) once said that if your memory is bad enough you never need to buy a second book. If kids are re-reading books, re-reading may be a good thing in various ways, apart from just saving money and shelf-space. One is that they may be learning that what happens in the plot is not everything: on a second reading you know that, and can pay more attention to the characters and how they speak and act, to how the plot is built up, and how the characters and plot are presented.
(Paulo Quintela's dedication to his brother)
The problem with most of contemporary poetry like my own attempt above is that they are increasingly minimalist. Two weeks ago I went to a car showroom to have a look at the new Hybrid Toyota, and needed to use the gents while waiting. There was hardly anything there but dim, hidden lighting and no sign of taps or plugs etc. There were squarish chunks of white ceramic stuck to the walls with nothing to indicate whether you wash your hands on them or pee on them? What the Ladies would have been like I dread to think. What's wrong with basins with chrome taps and plugs, plus loos with levers for flushing?
Nabokov said that reading only happens the second time; the first is merely finding out what happens. Back to re-reading Hölderlin.
