Episode 1437: £125 On Chapbooks!

Reading's all done for the essay and I've got my first paragraph down on the page. Possibly a bit quote-heavy, partly because I'm trying to recapitulate where the phrase 'the consolations of form' comes from and how it fits into my own thesis about Gunn and Monette, but I think it should be fine. Probably another two or three paragraphs, and then I'll move on to the close readings. I think I'm probably going to do three sets of comparisons, since I've managed to find three pairs of poems that broadly speaking, have the same themes or settings, and I think it'd be interesting to approach that from my angle about the formal aspects of Gunn's poetry versus the 'openness' of Monette's elegies for Rog. Also, I finally went ahead and spent £120 on chapbooks from Knives Forks and Spoons Press and The Red Ceilings Press. Speaking of buying stuff, I really wish I'd known earlier than a week or so ago that McSweeney's was going to have a garage sale. I'd have saved up some money then, so that I could shell out now for a chance to get 84 issues of The Believer at one go! Still considering persuading my parents to let me charge it to my credit card...