Marie Gauthier

Between working until 8pm yesterday and visiting some of Vincent’s friends today, I managed to finish the new issue of Poetry, including the Q & A’s with the poets, and I have to say, they’re not a terribly valuable contribution. By & large, I found the poets’ answers stiff, stilted, super-self-conscious, and boring (though W.S. DePiero’s self-consciousness was kind of sweet). The exception was Heather McHugh. Her Q & A alone was worth the price of admission: entertaining, illuminating, and interesting. She could’ve gone on for several more pages without my ever looking up to check the time.

Meanwhile, Vincent is studiously holding a pen and making a line of marks across the page — what he considers “writing” — and every so often punctuating the silence with, “V for Vincent!” He goes through a lot of paper that way.