Browsing

 'Browsing' is an unpleasant word for an enjoyable thing to do. Perhaps it subliminally suggests eyebrows which bring to mind caterpillars. I'm not sure if that's how words work for everyone but they do it like that for me.

Browsing is non-committal, indolent and restful with all the benefits of Existential freedom  before the burden of choice brings the shame and nausea of having committed oneself. I browsed my own books for things to look at, which is what they are for. I haven't looked at much poetry on a regular basis for quite some time so I picked out-

Don Paterson, Landing Light, in which the accomplishment seems to be beyond my reckoning. Don's books on the Shakespeare Sonnets and Michael Donaghy are brilliant and there are poems I like a lot, too, but sometimes it's best to admit when one is not on the right wavelength.

Paul Muldoon, Maggot, which is from 2010 and thus a little after his finest hour. A little bit forced, still fine in places but maybe the strain of continuing to be Muldonian and then even more so was begiining to show.

Sylvia Plath, the original version of Ariel as introduced by Freida, is still devastating in its language and, like Rothko perhaps, finds a way of dealing with its extreme themes. It's far too difficult, especially in the light of Freida's honest introduction, to have an opinion about events one was not a part of but I've long been convinced that Sylvia was a far greater talent than Ted.

And Derek Mahon, whose prose pieces in Red Sails I had entirely forgotten about. On boozy writers, P.J. Kavanagh, The Gallery Press and advertising work in America, he is wide-ranging, somewhat austere and admirable. He gives pop music short shrift - The Beatles, Stones and Dylan - but has some time for Joni. I was heartened to see that one of the Kavanagh poems he cites is Blackbird in Fulham which was my PJK 'breakthrough' moment and he refers us to the memoir which is upstairs and unread so that will be coming off the shelf for an ideal read on forthcoming trains.