November 12, 2022

Flu. Sleepless night because of monumental mucous flow. Body aches. It seems to be over, though, lasting somewhat less that a day– just long enough for me to spend money on remedies I apparently no longer need. 

Reviews of new books on Rilke in the NYRB. I didn’t know he was such a jerk. Most poets speak of him reverently. The books and the review talk much of Rilke’s beliefs as deduced from his poetry. I am not sure a poet’s beliefs are reliably deducible from his poetry, for poetry is, at least in part, an ecstatic state that transcends rather than illustrates conviction. The convictions of most of my poems are a surprise to me.