can you identify what text at what moment in yr life that turned you on the path of reading / writing
is it like yr first kiss / yr first sex / that sweet consumption that fills you as you fill it / and you knew that yes this is what i want for the rest of my life
4 Comments:
For me it was "Howl" - god, how cliche.. and for a long time I would only read AG - didn't have much of a taste for anyone else.
Wasn't until I met AnnMarie Eldon, who literally dropped my jaw with her insanely unique structures and voice. Sigh.
Currently, I respect AG and appreciate the initial influence he had on me, but I don't very much care for his style/poems anymore (of course I respect what he did)
Well, anyway, "First Kisses" are usually awkward. :)
Despite my inclination to steer clear of the Beats - I do love O'Hara. God Damn he is wonderful.
i went & picked oranges for a couple of months once, & grabbed my mum's Norton Anthology of world classics, because it was real thick. i remember dylan thomas, sartre - i started to read much more after this.
i think i was 19, i also read 'less than zero' by easton-ellis. cool stuff.
now i buy lots of second-hand books & realise i will never have time to read even all the books in my own house. have to rely on people's advice for what to read, like getting fixed up for a blind date maybe.
"Naked Lunch" - William S. Burroughs
"The Stranger" - Albert Camus
"Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt" - Richard Brautigan
These are still my three favorite books, each of which I've re-read numerous times.
Upon the initial reading of each I felt as though a heavy black curtain had been thrust aside to reveal more about the universe and my place in it.
The words were suddenly like puzzle pieces that had assembled themselves and told me stories I had suspected were at the edge of my imagination all along, but whose revelation nonetheless was a moment of pure and enduring joy.
ryan: agreed 1st kisses are awkward. when i was 19-20 and going thru a painful period in my life jim carroll was my man, esp. his 1st collection "living at the movies_ i still have his books but. . .but . . .
derek: a manic bibliophile by nature i also have more books going on at a time then i know what to do with. used to despair i'd never have time to read everything and everybody.
steve: that's it! those books, poems, texts that reveal the universe. it never ends and it never grows old.
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