Off to ALA

I'm off early tomorrow to the ALA (American Library Association) conference in DC and I hope to be blogging a bit there. But most excitedly I picked up spankin new novels by three of my favorite authors at our local independent book store Village Books (shameless plug): Falling Man by Don Delillo, Devisidaro by Michael Ondaatje, and After Dark by Haruki Murakami. I look forward to many secluded hours tucked away with these and a glass (or two) of wine after the day's craziness eclipses.

And it is also my intention to use this blog to share current poetry, so here is the first of those:

Jersey Shore

I’m reading a book about a man who

died, but it shifts about

in time, so he’s not really dead. The book reminds

me of water. And yet that rectangular black

hole, the thud of dirt on the pine

coffin empty of soul is a metaphor that propels

the book forward from the beginning, Yes, he runs

up the beach laughing but there is the icy claw

of water on his feet, chased by the waves

on the Jersey shore, where he spends his boyhood, or

rides the bus with his brother, the slap of waves harder,

and the novel is a study of the novelist

who is not dead yet, but will be soon because he’s old,

the slap of waves harder now, even though the book sold

millions and millions of copies, made millions and millions

of dollars, and on its pages a solid black ink, and on its

pages that have now flown throughout the world, its dead

character lives, he dies but lives, and it is a paradox

this book that lives and dies with every moment, as we read

his words, see his face glow with joy, true joy like a candle,

hear his words, not like song, but more a drone, the hum

of life, the words, and those of others too, others too, those

he touched, who touched him, and they too voices that add

to the book, and they too live and die, are slapped by

the waves that shape the book, the waves from the Jersey

shore, the waves that continue even when the book is finished

and closed and laid on the table.