An irresistible book comes along every so often. I do not intend to read it. I didn't ask for it. I'm busy reading other books that I requested or agreed to receive. Still, I can't resist holding this new one a moment longer. Is it the title, the picture under it, the feel of the cover paper? Nice. It almost matches the background of my blog, I notice.
The cover graphic shows only a ripe plum. I don't like the title, The Anthologist. Never read Baker's other books. Nice cover. I like the way the little book feels as I turn it over to find the plum cut open on the back, a plum pit on the spine. "What is this?" I wonder, purposefully averting my eyes from the hype. I open it to riffle the pages. They also feel nice, soft, even though they don't have deckle edges, which I dearly love.
Reading the first page is a fatal error. I'm hooked. Hard. It begins:
Hello, this is Paul Chowder, and I'm going to try to tell you everything I know. Well, not everything I know, because a lot of what I know, you know. But everything I know about poetry.... What is poetry? Poetry is prose in slow motion.Gasp! The guy sounds gay! (He's not.) It's another introspective, gloomy poet maundering about his lack of fame, fortune and current writer's block, I suspect. (No, he's blocked writing an introduction to a book of others' poems, an anthology; like me writing about other writers and their books.)
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