A Degree of Surface Clarity

A Degree of Surface Clarity . . . while keeping oneself open to the variability of the day.

In preperation for 2007, I'm reading through all the books that came my way in 2006, thinking about what I like about the ones I like.

The poets who balance NECESSITY and ENERGY. The poets who grapple with the inherent mystery in all things, but who also see the tangible, cohabitant return of THINGS.

Which is, what is the PLAN, and where is the unplanned. . . . poems about chance which read and sound un-chanced, de-chanced, do not speak persuasively to me.

And really perhaps that is the question, the reason to return to poems, not just because they are competent or even well-made, but because there is something about them that feels persuasive, as if perception were an argument (which it, at least partially, is), and poems were then arguments of a way of being in the world. Ontological bits and drams.