The Two Halves of One Almost Whole

Radiator, Pine Lake Lodge, Pine Lake, New York (10 June 2011)
Still Point, Caroga Lake, New York

Tomorrow, I will begin designing a book called Radiator. It is not my book but Nancy's. It has seemed to me that poetry should be a cooperative venture, not poems necessarily, but poetry necessarily so. A beast so frail and unattended to requires some joint attention. And I toil at that job a bit, trying to bring attention to the small unlit corners of poetry where those who are my people and I inhabit. But another way is by designing this book for Nancy, a book that will be the receptacle for two dozen of her poems, poems that are quiet yet surprising, even disturbing. Many poems in this book affect me more strongly than almost any poems I have read. I admit, though, that it might be because these are personal beings to me and because I am attuned to the peculiar beauties of her voice. I don't argue here, however, that her poems might not be good. That is not a possibility.

The radiator above is one we have seen many times, during many weekend dinners at the Pine Lake Lodge. A picture Nancy took of this radiator (not this one here, which I took myself) will probably be the cover image for this book of poetry.

Most of the day today I spent at a conference of archivists in Saratoga Springs. This week, my work took me to three conferences, spread across the state: one of records managers, one of county clerks, and one of archivists. And these are my people as well. But while I'm with them I sometimes drift into my other life. Today, for instance, I created many fidgetglyphs as I listened to people discuss issues in archives. My largest creation is the one below.

I like to believe that I have two selves, that there are two halves to me: one the organized archivist and manager, represented by the maniacally bare office I maintain at work; the other a fluid maker of poems, represented by the unbelievably messy office-cum-library-cum-studio I maintain on the third floor of my house.

Of course, I understand that everyone is at least two people. No-one is simple enough to be fewer than two.

Geof Huth, "The Words Have Eyes" (Saratoga Springs, New York, 10 June 2011)
ecr. l'inf.