Quotidian observations

The worst happens, and there, it's done. The fleas go on biting. The sun comes up again.

- David Malouf, Ransom

Everything I ever suspected about poetry

Real life correspondence between one poet (me) and another:

ASH Smyth: Heh. Classic title. I like the shape of the narrative, how it twists back and forth between who's fucking things up at any given moment: and yes, how neatly observed that a guy would say 'your negativity is ruining your idea of love' and then proceed to ruin it himself in the time-honoured fashion... The idea that a girl suggests the fling and the guy wants the 'true love' scenario is also a nice reversal of the usual trends.

AN Other: Thanks for the comment. Interesting analysis.. wouldn't have known it could be analysed like that actually.. thanks

Literal/literate/literary

It is in the very nature of creativity, in its prodigious complexity and richness, that it will accommodate paradoxes and ambiguities. But this, it seems, will always elude and pose a problem for the uncreative, literal mind (which I hasten to add is not the same as the literary mind, nor even the merely literate mind).

- Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays