titles of poetry books
yes, titles of poetry books. many of them are mundane. _Selected Poems_ or _Collected Poems_ usually of So-and-So, often from year1 to year2. so straightforward they seem to promise boredom, but aficionados know they hold treasures. but you can't title every book _A Treasury of Poems by So-and-So from Year1 to Year2_, that would be boring too. some titles entertain, _Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats_. but many, perhaps many many, are koans for non-Zens. Take mine, for instance: _Fixes for No Problems_, _Haiku Foryu_, _Navigating Maleness_, _Poems for Harley Riders and Other Transcendentals_, even _Under the Influence_ which does not mean what you might think. but I didn't invent this kind of titling. Here are some titles from books near me: _In the Shadow of the Bomb_, _Psychosis in the Produce Department_, _Spider Road_, and _Beating on Iron_. each gives you a glimpse into the contents, a hint of what you'll find, a koan to meditate on before and after you read. I admire their cleverness and their capturing that lens-mirrorness that I associate with a koan. I bow to those who devised them.
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