the first poems of mine that ever saw print were sent out under Etheridge's aegis, in envelopes he paid postage on
[...] Paint the apartment, write a book, quit booze, sure: tomorrow.
Which ensures that life gets lived in miniature. In lieu of the large feelings--sorrow, fury, joy--I had their junior counterparts--anxiety, irritation, excitement.
[...] There was an internal click as an actual idea of Cassirer's broke through. The sentence that had so addled me suddenly made sense [...]:
The same function which the image of God performs, the same tendency to permanent existence, may be ascribed to the uttered sounds of language.
He m…
[...] I was seventeen, thin and malleable as coat hanger wire, and Mother was the silky shadow stitched to my feet that I nonetheless believed I could outrun. [...]
He sat behind a desk sprawled with papers, hands interleaved before him as if by a mortician. He closed the door behind me, then steered me to a chair facing his desk. I figured he'd decided against recommending me, having found the poems and essays I'd sent him in advance dim-witted. I felt oafish…
