“When I was younger, I craved novels,” says the poet and cultural critic, whose latest book, “Figure It Out,” is a collection of essays. “Now I read more poetry and nonfiction.”
What books are on your nightstand?
A formidable pile. Alejandra Pizarnik, “Diana’s Tree” (translated by Yvette Siegert). Jakov Lind, “Ergo” (translated by Ralph Manheim). Mónica de la Torre, “Repetition Nineteen.” Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” Oyinkan Braithwaite, “My Sister, the Serial Killer.” George Oppen, “Selected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers” (edited by Stephen Cope). Joon Oluchi Lee, “Neotenica.” Hervé Guibert, “Written in Invisible Ink: Selected Stories” (edited and translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman). Lara Mimosa Montes, “Thresholes.” Abigail Child, “This Is Called Moving: A Critical Poetics of Film.” Renee Gladman, “Calamities.”
What’s the last great book you read?
Magda Szabo, “Katalin Street,” translated by Len Rix. A dead girl comes back to semi-existence and hovers near the homes of neighbors who never treated her nicely enough while she was alive. Earlier this year, to school myself on the history of innovative celluloid magic, I finally read P. Adams Sitney’s “Visionary Film.”
Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?
Does the “Aeneid” count as a novel? I read the Robert Fagles translation. Dido, the “tragic queen of Carthage,” had long been part of my bloodstream, but I needed to confront her sorrow up close, in the verse that is her homeland.
Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can overcome bad prose?
Some world-altering books arrive wrapped in dense, difficult prose, requiring prolonged mastication. I’ve never been able to make it through Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit.” I’m being judged, not Hegel.
Describe your ideal reading experience.
While temping as a Kelly Girl in 1982, I gulped down Charles Dickens’s “Dombey and Son.” I was working for a week as a receptionist, but no customers or clients showed up. Sometimes the phone would ring. But mostly I was on my own with Dickens.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
Stephen Rodefer’s “Four Lectures” (published in 1982 by the Figures, a magnificent press run by Geoffrey Young) changed the tempo of my poetry-writing life. I was inspired by Rodefer’s non sequiturs, by his distractibility, by his diction’s obstreperousness — road blocks that made me giddy.
Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?
Impossible question to answer succinctly. I depend — for nourishment, ideas, ecstasy — on hundreds. Among my favorite living poets is Friederike Mayröcker. Close to my heart, always, as role model, is Joyce Carol Oates. Jamaica Kincaid, Hilton Als, Joan Didion: style-triumvirate. Slide into my DMs if you want more recommendations.
What book, if any, most contributed to your artistic development?
“The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara.” He taught me how to be quick.
Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?
I love reading movie-star biographies, a genre I take seriously. Patricia Bosworth’s biography of Montgomery Clift is a classic: terse yet juicy.
Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?
I received, when I was 20, a slim edition of Wordsworth’s selected poems, as a gift from a young man I loved. I didn’t dare to hope that he loved me back. But his inscription gave me a foretaste.
What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
From Jackie Wang’s “Carceral Capitalism,” I learned about the sinister existence of a predictive policing software called PredPol. Don’t Google it, or ads for PredPol will start showing up on your Twitter feed.
Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?
Their inner filth. But, please, in clean sentences. I can’t say it’s radical to wish for more writers to describe accurately their sexual fantasies; but my appetite for carnal truth is unsated.
Have you ever changed your opinion of a book based on information about the author, or anything else?
I should have changed my mind about Ezra Pound’s poems, but I didn’t. I can’t erase, from my ear, his elegiac line “Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid.”
How do you organize your books?
Prose and poetry dwell in separate areas, alphabetized by author. Certain writers defect from category. Boris Pasternak’s prose memoir “Safe Conduct” lives next to his book-length poem “My Sister — Life” in the poetry section. Books in French have their own cul-de-sac. I keep together the books of certain publishers: all of my Green Integer books, for example, are on one shelf. On another set of shelves — the salon des refusés — are the books that depress me too much, or are too miscellaneous and dreary, to be included in the regular area. But I can’t discard these wastrels.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
Thich Nhat Hanh, “Happiness.” Are you shocked? I was going to mention “For Every Young Heart: Connie Francis Talks to Teenagers,” but that didn’t seem surprising enough.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
My parents gave me a Gallimard “Collection Folio” paperback of André Gide’s “L’immoraliste” for Christmas when I was a teen. I didn’t read it until much later. Some messages take time to detonate.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
When I was younger, I craved novels: “Jane Eyre” and “Sons and Lovers” schooled me in ambivalence, flame, escape. Now, I read more poetry and nonfiction. I seek out books that are odd, unpopular and reticent. But a fluent novel — especially a monologue, in the maniacal mode of Thomas Bernhard — can still sock it to me.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Jean Rhys, Emily Dickinson, Max Jacob.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good. What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t?
Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” is entrancing, but I was disappointed to discover that it was not about fairies and queens.
What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?
Thomas Mann, “The Magic Mountain.” Thomas Mann, “Buddenbrooks.” Thomas Mann, “Doctor Faustus.” But I will make amends — as soon as Susan Bernofsky publishes her new translation of “The Magic Mountain.”
What do you plan to read next?
Whim will determine what’s next. Many offerings entice. Cathy Park Hong, “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.” Douglas A. Martin,
“Wolf.” Asiya Wadud, “Syncope.” I might start with Steve Benson’s “Blue Book”; I’m late to its idiosyncratic party. I open it and discover these lines: “he’s up on the wall nude his arms / wrapped around his head talking like / or about David Hockney David Cassidy.” How could I resist?
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‘Odd, Unpopular and Reticent’: The Books That Sing to Wayne Koestenbaum - The New York Times
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