Wednesday, February 5, 2014

on saturation

I am wondering about the relationship between good work, success, and self-promotion. I haven't come to any conclusions, but I am thinking about it. The louder the better? The louder the better known? How to find good work? I mean, I just ask a few people I trust for reading recommendations. Places like facebook are so saturated with people yelling about all kinds of things that I don't find it an appropriate place to be led to things that excite me.

Lately I am loving Melanie Noel's The Monarchs and Natalie Diaz's When My Brother was an Aztec and kind of liking Grace Paley's short stories. I'm reading Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and the stories are really solid, but some of them bore me and some are out of this world fantastic. And (on deck) I really want to read all of the new Ricochet Editions books and Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense, which I feel like I should have read by now.

Happy reading, y'all.