My personal library

                                                     
                                                 
has--according to a casual count I made this morning--
350 books, not including copies of books I have written
but including literary journals.                          
                                                        
One of those books is Reader-Response Criticism   
from Formalism to Post-Structuralism edited by   
Jane P. Thompkins -- Copyright © 1980 by The Johns
Hopkins University Press.  On page V the following:                              
                                                          

                                                             
click on image to enlarge                        
                                                
                                               
                                          
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yesterday today notes

                                     
                                        
Yesterday:                                
                                   
Spent most of my online time             
changing things in AOL Mail          
and in my blogs.                      
-                                 
Took a short parking lot walk.            
                                     
                                  
Today:                            
                                  
In the early morning of this                
Memorial Day the green-tinted          
(beneath its heavy translucent         
covering just under the roof         
of the apartment building north   
of this one at its southeast           
corner where still growing         
Sturdy Bush is) light/ went          
dark.                                 
-                                  
My ever-changing body in its             
weaknesses/ forces ne to be     
ever innovative regarding it.              
-                                  
My subconscious continues its war     
against my conscious, but I can't         
let one dominate/ for I need the          
strengths native to each.               
-                                  
Having problems in my blog spaces   
I never had before, especially      
with the one migrated from AOL.         
The only recent major thing I did   
was open a Gmail account.  Seems 
my best move might be to record    
and/or PDF my books.                      
                                        
                                         
                                             
                                       
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Reading book by Owen Barfield

                                     
                                         
Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning         
                                                
Since I haven't gotten very far into it, 
I can't say much yet; but I know it is a   
book I like.  The copy I have is of the          
second edition -- Copyright © 1964 by the
McGraw-Hill Book Company.  I have it on     
loan through a local library.  The first   
sentence of the "Preface to the Second       
Edition" reveals this book's basis:        
                                           
  The Preface to the first edition
  described briefly how this book    
  grew out of two empirical obser-   
  vations, first, that poetry reacts  
  on the meanings of the words it    
  employs, and, secondly, that there    
  appear to be two sorts of poetry.     
                                           
On page 34 is a longer passage I would        
like to shorten but deem it best not to.
                                             
  Apart from pleasurable entertainment  
  (which must never be forgotten), there   
  are two important functions which poetry  
  is there to perform.  One of them is the
  one I have stressed throughout this book,
  namely the making of meaning, which gives
  life to language and makes true knowledge
  possible.  And this it does inasmuch as    
  it is the vehicle of imagination.  The     
  other, lying much nearer the surface of  
  life, is to mirror, not necessarily by  
  approving, the characteristic response   
  of the age in which it is written.  Now
  it may happen, and it has been happening
  increasingly since the eighteenth century,
  that these two functions conflict.  They
  may even be diametrically opposed to one
  another.  For there may be an age of which
  the characteristic response is to deny     
  the validity of imagination.  And if that
  happens, a true and sensitive poet will  
  find himself in a dilemma.
                                                
Obviously, many changes have occurred since    
Barfield wrote his book, and while I have an
idea of where he would stand, I am going to  
defer that until I have read his entire book.   
                                                 
                                           
                                                 
                                               
                                               
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Today at wood s lot

                                             
                                          
What is on this page is all worth lingering over,   
but what most interested me is the article by      
Laura Miller about New Zealander Brian Boyd and   
evocriticism.                                        
                                                 
Today at wood s lot              
                                                
                                             
                                           
                                             
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all strung out

                                    
                                    
Mares eat oats
and does eat oats
and little lambs             
eat ivy.                 
A kid 'll eat ivy too,
wouldn't you?                              
                                          
-                                  
                        
In the April 27, 2009 issue of Time/
one of the results of a survey of 1000 people
taken by a group of reporters who fanned out
across America was: 14% said this nation is   
heading into a long slow decline.                     
                                                   
-                                
                            
According to one research,                     
men who drink 5 glasses of water daily--
an amount that would make me feel like an innertube--
lower their risk of having a heart attack by 54%.         
                                                     
-                                
                          
Beware of sodium benzoate,                          
which is found in certain margarines            
and other foods,                 
because mixing it with vitamin C           
is bad for one's health.  
Search it out.                            
                                          
-                                 
                           
There is something in peanut butter--      
I forget what it is--               
that is highly carcinogenic.           
I continue to eat peanut butter nonetheless.                                 
                                                      
                                                     
                                                   
                                                   
                                                
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Somehow I feel

          
                                           
                                                
everything I've wanted to say           
I've already said.                 
It's just a matter of finding      
where all of it is.                  
                                  
I could, of course, be wrong about that,
even infinitely wrong.                      
                                              
In any case, there's enough work to be done
with just that I know the whereabouts of    
to keep me busy for months                     
if the circumstances of my ongoing          
remain favorable.                              
                                              
One project I have in mind is              
an annotated PDF version of 1976 Today.         
366 sonnets would be in it                 
and each would have its own page.                    
                                            
Do need to finish posting the        
Brian's Brain journal,          
but that rest is offline and unready.          
                                        
                                          
---                                   
                                     
                                   
My computer was at a tech shop 
for over a week.                 
Got it back Friday afternoon.
Spent the time here reading, writing,
and going through boxes of materials  
I hadn't gotten to yet.
We took my old computer system 
and my printer I had stopped using
to a recycling place.
         
                                   
                                              
                                        
                                           
                                             
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