I have, of late, become rather discontented with Barry Macsweeny. We didn't get along from the get-go, and I find his poetry trite and boring. It is small wonder to me that his book is out of print, because he sucks. But what use is my opinion? You won't have to read him unless you happen to be taking postmodern poetics as well, which you aren't. Probably.
But I am, and it has made me hate the man. Well, not the man, but certainly I don't like his poetry very much. There's no playing around in it! It's all the same sort of images and themes we've seen before, or maybe I'm just getting cynical. Which is possible. Of course.
And now I am in a strange place, brain-wise. I find myself reading him and thinking that I want to be reading something else, something that isn't Macsweeny's poetry. So I turn to my shelf, and consider it closely, and (instead of a novel) I take down a collection of Bernstein's poetry I got from the library and haven't had the chance to read, and I think what the fuck just happened here?
I wanted a break from work, so I pulled down a book of poetry? I am reading this poetry for pleasure, rather than to feed any sort of research, or because I have to, or anything so strange as that. I pulled the book down because I enjoy reading Charles 'motherfucking' Bernstein and no other reason.
At some point, I became
incredibly
fucking
pretentious.
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