'it leaps like a bike with a wild boy riding it'

I just read this Grace Paley collection again. A search on this very blog reveals I have already mentioned it three times – once in 2010 and twice in 2008. At some level, I must like it even more than I think I do.

I wrote the first time: “Rather mad and hectic in a great Stevie Smith ee cummings deadpan cartwheel razorblade sort of way. I feel I know what she means and am interested in it and like how she says it most of the time, which I realize is not such a frequent happy coincidence with me.”

And later: “Dainty white bird bones and little chameleon’s feet that pick-pick their way all the way up you then whoa your stomach parachutes out at 13,000 feet.”

The third time, I just copied out one of my favorite poems from the collection: Come back, you fucking sea.

This time I’ll just add that, although I have no idea how old she was when she wrote these poems, to me she writes like one of those cool old people who have become properly young again without losing the good things about their oldness. And she’s funny too.