December 31, 2015

Stepped on my cell phone. It works, but the screen is gone, so I work in darkness.
   
Took my Prius to be restored by handsome hillbilly Dave, was given a dark Camry by the rental people. Amber brought it to my house; she has just graduated with a Communications major from North Greenville College, and doesn’t think she wants to work her way up through the ranks at Enterprise, which she has found disappointing.
   
My massive Poetry of Ireland in its green shamrocked binding has been my bathroom reading. The notable thing is that almost all the poems crammed onto its almost 700 pages are bad, really, really, bad. So far only J C Mangan has risen above the lot. Even the famous Thomas Moore has his clotted and opaquely allusive work redeemed mostly by their beautiful tunes. One suspects that the mass of poetry at all times was bad– which is to say, it got the form right, but without discovery, without exploration, without much personalization. It seems to me that contemporary poetry has an edge here– that readers no longer accept a poem simply because its structure is recognizable and the path it follows is familiar. Poetry becomes better by being less everyday, by no longer appearing daily in the newspapers, by no longer being broadsided onto city walls. On the other hand, its very lack of familiarity makes it seem difficult and esoteric.  Sometimes it IS difficult and esoteric, or replaces the sloth of needless repetition with the sloth of reflexive innovation.
   
Washington Places’ recent triumph makes it seem the big news of the year. Let me think on that.
   
Pain in my right shoulder at times almost unbearable, as well as being idiopathic. On the other hand, I realized yesterday that I had conquered acid reflux.

Afternoon. Bought a doorstop for the door that has been annoying me since moved in; got a new phone-- an Android smartphone, all bells and whistles– from Amanda who is pregnant and won’t be partying tonight; napped memorably with Maud on my feet. I have never felt less valedictory or sum-it-all-up-ish in my life, so, simply, goodbye 2015.  The New Year’s split-pea soup is made. The bourbon punch is cooling in the fridge.