I'm still reading Eileen's The Secret Lives of Punctuations, Vol. I

This is not a book you skim through. I recognize truth when Eileen says, "Poetry is a way of life". I recognize this as I read this book, because unlike a lot of novels which I've read through in one go, thought about for a moment, then put on the shelf, poetry seeps down below the skin, and sets the reader thinking and thinking again. Which is probably why I still can't let go of reading:

;A TENDERNESS SO PAINFUL

;asleep, she beheld him then

;to discover perimeter by where your lips land

;personifying the impenetrability of a fading illusion

;a child the remnant of a fading illusion

;a bed for slicing oceans

;the purse pulsing from persimmons

;persimmons


What I love about the way these poems are made is how they invite the reader to participate to respond and speculate on the lines that go into the poem. As I said to my husband, now that's why Eileen makes a mark, because she isn't afraid to explore and experiment.

There is too this poem that made me think of Ron Silliman's commentary on margins as he writes about Stephanie Young's
Bay Poetics .

;WRITING PAST MARGIN

; but all side streets point to wrong directions

; violence via the infant shreaking

; nothing behind a corner, really

; seduction as wet cobblestones

; a god envying decay

; math

Now, why that poem made me think of Ron may have to do with me reading this poem soon after reading his review of Bay Poetics...but there was certainly something else in there that created that association...I'd love to explore that further, but we're heading off to a concert :)