Lately, I�ve taken to carrying around two or three books rather than my normal one book. I find myself so distractible these long sunny rainless (when will the rain come?) days that I need to have choices for the spare minutes I get during the day to read.

Currently I�m carrying Poison by Kathryn Harrison, another loaner from Bathsheba. I�ve stalled again in my reading of it, though. I�m not sure why, as I love everything about this book so far. I love the narrator, the tone, the language, the subject, the lyricism, etc. etc. But I�m also having a difficult time sustaining my interest in all of the above.

I�m carrying Paul Celan�s Selected Poems & Prose which I�ve been attempting to enjoy for close to a month now. I talked briefly with Bathsheba about him a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing translations and the difficulty therein, ancient Greek (I love Mary Barnard�s translations of Sappho), German, the perfect Spanish to English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude and some computer language (described by her correspondent as lyrical and elastic or something�at least that�s what my memory tells me. Probably untrue.) and she said that Celan�s �Todesfuge� (�Deathfugue�) is one of her favorite poems of all time. She also told me about some lame translations of this poem, one she read that did not translate Deutschland to Germany in the English version.

This weekend I finally actually read the translation that I have (done by John Felstiner) of this poem and I note immediately that he does not translate several words (including the above mentioned Germany), and, sometimes, whole phrases into English. His rendering, though, I think is quite wonderful. He does this thing where he�ll translate a word or phrase into English, but later in the poem (which relies heavily on repetition) he will not translate that same word or phrase. For instance: �your golden hair Margareta� later becomes �your goldenes Haar Margareta� and �this Death is a master from Deutschland� becomes �this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland� becomes �der Tod is ein Meister aus Deutschland.� I actually fully approve of this. I love it, in fact. This poem, in part, is about Germany and the German language and who do you become when your homeland and your mothertongue hate you? "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening..."

I know. I'm speaking nonsense. Never mind me.

Ah, but the poem. Look at this stanza:

He shouts dig this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play
he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are so blue
stick your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing

I love how this bit moves and stutters and confuses and dances and sings and breaks your heart. I am slowly learning to hear Celan�s voice�at first I just thought he wasn�t my cuppa, but I think I may have been wrong. And this book that I�m carrying is Big. Fat. Excellent.

Also I�m carrying William Matthews around. But I�ve already discussed that.

Last night I reread Ursula LeGuin�s slip of a book Very Far Away From Anywhere Else. Such an odd, small, lovely true little story. Just exactly right.

I�m attempting to be disciplined in my reading, which I have never in all my life attempted. I�m unsure why I feel the need now, except that I fear without discipline I will continue to reread old favorites and never get myself out of the creative rut wherein I currently reside. Therefore, I resolve to renew my stuttered start of Independent People (Halldor Laxness) after finishing Poison--it has, after all, come recommended to me by two readers/thinkers whom I respect. Also up to bat: I have really got to read Ernest Hemmingway. I�ve decided. I will. The Sun Also Rises. East of Eden, too, is on my shortlist.

I think, overall, I�m having difficulty with prose this summer. With the exception of Atonement, everything seems to be slow going. Normally I have difficulty concentrating on poetry. Frustrating, because what I really want to be doing is writing prose�not poetry. I�m utterly sick of the poems that come from me. I want to tell stories now. Unfortunately my brain is working against me (we do so rarely agree).