While Mac Low's 22 Light Poems has a better cover, this book (and its acrostic technique) was at the center of a transformation in my interest in poetry. Though I have no conscious connection in my poetry to Mac Low's poetry, the words here liberated from conventional meaning really helped break me of a certain lame view of language. (This lame view of language is the view perpetrated by the novel.) This change obviously can't be linked to one thing, but this is the book that I carried around with me for what I would guess was at least 6 months.
"The Human Situation and Zen Budhism"
To human existence
Human undertaken man a nonetheless,
Subjectivity. In toward understand, and tools, itself or not
As never. Divided
Zen ego's not
Be. Undoubtedly, does deception. However is, subjectivity
(morality),
That hatred ego
However, utterly misgiving-- any nothing
Simply inherent the usually any. The itself often negativity
Avoid negativity. Did
Zen ego Nan-yo,
Before use development disregard however, in sincere means....
This transformation in my feelings toward poetry didn't happen in a revolutionary way or with an epiphany, but in a way I could only describe as lovingly. I don't think of myself as a very lovey person, but I do see a non-judgmental quality of language in Mac Low, a quality that I think helped me separate, in a way, the person "I" am from the words that this person writes.
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