“but I can give it a silly answer”

I promise to resuscitate this blog soon, but, until later this week, enjoy this fun byte from Auden’s The Dyer’s Hand:

“A writer, or, at least, a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: ‘Whom do you write for?’ The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover, I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author” (Prologue, 12).

It’s in direct conversation with Rachel, of course; and while we’re both swamped lately (I’m reading Auden for my Comps, you guys!), it’s a conversation I didn’t want to trail off completely into the great big blue. Up next: my rambly thoughts about historical poems, the poetics of local legend and myth, that witnessy thing we do, and the challenges I’ve faced trying to write about my travels in Vietnam and Cambodia– and what tenuous connection to those places I had as a tourist.

Hasta pronto.

—Sara