Thin Slices

I haven't been able to get into a good book all the past week. For now, I've been reading Billy Collins' Sailing Alone Around the Room. Lovely poetry in it, although I think I like the first book I read by him better. In this one, he seems a bit obsessed with death.

It's a gloomy, fall-ish day here in my town...just the sort of day to enjoy a poem or two. So here's two of my favorites from Sailing. "Marginalia" and "Victoria's Secret." Witty, twisty and lovely word imagery.

Actually a biography

In college, I read Kathleen Norris' Cloister Walk and thoroughly enjoyed her writing. So when I saw her Virgin of Bennington at a library book sale for $1, it was an easy buy decision.

From reading the cover copy, I thought it was going to be about her college years and the time afterward--how she led a wild life in NYC to developing faith and moving to one of the Dakotas. But really, the book was about her mentor and employer, Betty Kray, whom she met in NYC.

While Kray's life was interesting and important, particularly for American poetry, a mini-biography wasn't what I was expecting. It seemed as if Norris started out writing about herself but found Kray to be more fascinating.

The book itself wasn't that bad; it was just so wrongly marketed and has such a misleading cover copy that I think most people will be a bit puzzled and then annoyed that Virgin isn't at all what they thought it would be.

Ah well, at least it was my nonfiction read for the month. And it was an appropriate follow-up to Billy Collins, too.

Rating: 6/10

Simply lovely

I don't remember when I first heard of Billy Collins; it was probably through my friend Kim, who has excellent taste. So when Angie posted Collins' poem Taking off Emily Dickinson's Clothes, it was an excellent reminder that I've always meant to read an actual book of his poetry. I picked Ballistics, which is a fine example of modern poetry.

First up, I love the cover. It's gorgeous in person. Secondly, I enjoy modern poetry. I even interned for a small publishing house that was putting out a book of modern poetry (that was a glorious summer; sitting outside, drinking iced coffee, reading poetry all day long...sigh). So it's pretty natural that I thoroughly enjoyed Collins' work. His writing is simple yet fraught with twists and bits of humor. I want to read more.

Rating: 9.5/10