"yes! i fried you in the right embrace: the close kiss of why not."

- Theodore Roethke

Today I read Theodore Roethke's "On the Poet and His Craft," and it was actually very interesting. There are only a few of Roethke's poems that I really connect with, but his prose, particularly when he's ranting or exhorting his students, is totally engaging. Probably I would have hated him as a person or as a professor - by all accounts he was blustering and didn't give praise lightly, but to read his prose is fun. He has some interesting advice to poetry instructors.

Here are a few more fragments I enjoyed immensely:

"strange little women full of ticks and ethics; existentialists with wet hands"

"ah, sweetlings, a sleep in your fat, if you don't once in a while, at least look outside, the angels will be forever angry."

"That block you're always talking about - are you sure it doesn't fill your entire head? You don't like paint and are afraid of it? Try drawing with chalk in your navel. I mean: be true to your own constrictions. Get down where your obsessions are. Live with the desperate and you'll survive."

"stamping a tiny foot against God."

"I taught you as I should; not what I know but what I do not know. I cut you down, and left you singing in your best bones."

So, today I suppose I don't have many thoughts of my own - but with Theodore Roethke, I would wish you ("dear darling provocatives"), "the swoops of many fish. May your search for the abiding be forever furious."

Scusi, dov'e piazza san marco per favori? e li? Gratzie.
Si, io vore mangare quelcose.
[spellings almost completely made up]

Eight days until Italy, not counting today, which is almost over.

P.S. I found this great quote: “I drink a lot about my thinking problem.”