Read Me to Sleep, Ricky

An Honest Ghost

September 10, 2022 Rick Whitaker Season 2 Episode 1
Read Me to Sleep, Ricky
An Honest Ghost
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Show Notes Transcript

The first episode of Read Me to Sleep Ricky's second season is a reading by host Rick Whitaker from his own 2013 novel An Honest Ghost.

"Like an Italian micromosaic, whose infinitesimal ceramic tesserae generate an unearthly glow just by being in close proximity to each other, Rick Whitaker's An Honest Ghost is both narrative and objet, a singular work of art whose singularity keeps beckoning to the reader. He has put the force back into tour de force." --John Ashbery

Composed entirely of discrete, unedited sentences recycled from more than 500 other books, An Honest Ghost is an autobiographical literary feat unlike any other.

Music: Brad Garton's Coronavirus Suite (2020)


The transcription following contains a list of all the quotes, in order of appearance, that make up An Honest Ghost. Each quote is followed by the author who wrote it; the book in my library from which the sentence was taken; and the page number on which it appears in that edition. RW



Support the show

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City.
Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.com
https://readmetosleepricky.com


Read Me to Sleep, Ricky 

A podcast by Rick Whitaker

Season Two

Books /  LGBTQ / Sleep



Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, the podcast for insomniacs who want to be lulled to sleep by something worth listening to, begins its second season on September 12, 2022 with a reading from host Rick Whitaker’s own 2013 novel An Honest Ghost, a literary stunt Edmund White called “an exhilarating, percussive experience,” and which poet John Ashbery selected as a Book of the Year for the TLS. The book consists entirely of sentences recycled from other books, unedited, just one sentence at a time, the first and only novel to be so composed. 

The music for this episode is the complete Coronavirus Suite by composer Brad Garton (used by permission)

Copyright Rick Whitaker 2022 Music copyright Brad  Garton 2022


“Rick Whitaker’s An Honest Ghost is both narrative and objet, a singular work of art whose singularity keeps beckoning to the reader. He has put the force back into tour de force.” 
— John Ashbery, poet and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters


The following list contains all of the quotes, in order of appearance, that make up An Honest Ghost. Each quote is followed by the author who wrote it; the book in my library from which the sentence was taken; and the page number on which it appears in that edition. RW


An Honest Ghost: William Shakespeare Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5 


Happiness is an: Thomas Szasz The Second Sin 36


I am unpacking: Walter Benjamin Illuminations 59 


I have been: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 180


It is growing: Hart Crane Library of America: Complete Poems and Selected Letters 358


There are limits: Rob Stephenson Passes Through 26 


Life lived by: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 15


You go back: Samuel Beckett Nohow On 46


The subjective universe: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 41


There was an: Teju Cole Open City 166


It seemed neither: Carl Van Vechten Parties 105 


"How can you: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 47 


He was twenty-four: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 22 


At the moment: Adam Thirwell Delighted States 38


David said, "I: Don DeLillo The Names 260 


My splendid David: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 274


My daily recreational: Charles Kaiser The Gay Metropolis 243 


"What color were: Don DeLillo The Names 108


Our little love: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 161 


"Oh! How long: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 165 


Well!: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis 109


I was dealing: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no page numbers) 


He was really: David Wojnarowicz Memories That Smell Like Gasoline 39


I wrote in: Benjamin Sonnenberg Lost Property 93


There was something: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 99


To be in: Anita Brookner Look at Me 92


Sometimes he purred: Lincoln Kirstein By With To and From 37 


He often pretended: Ben Marcus Notable American Women 130 


The action signaled: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 15


I could spare: Thomas Bernhard "The Stories (Ed. David Constantine) 271 Joiner", German Short


I would lie: Virginia Woolf Orlando 90


I have never: Graham Greene Travels with My Aunt 3


A few years: Albert Camus The Fall 17 


I lived in: Theophile Gautier Mademoiselle de Maupin 144


It was very: W. Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 187 


These arrangements turned: Edmund White Nocturnes for the King of Naples 2


Few men have: Charles Baudelaire The Mirror of Art 192 


Occasionally I had: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 85


David frowned: Eleanor Porter Just David 202


He was not: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 123


It had been: Brenda McCreight Parenting Your Adopted Older Child 187


When his friends: Robert Bolaño Amulet 79


His irony, intended: Susan Sontag I, etcetera.: Stories 48


Prodded by his: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 39 


Once when I: Richard Gilman Common and Uncommon Mass 49


His rage had: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 78


The most innocent-seeming: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 112


His early childhood: James Schuyler Alfred and Guinivere viii (introduction by John Ashbery)


He was a: Rick Whitaker Assuming the Position 128 


He died of: Alex Ross Listen to This 8


He lived a: Gilbert Highet Poets in a Landscape 174 


Shall I describe: Neil Bartlett Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall 240


I found it: Theophile Gautier Mademoiselle de Maupin 317


His mother had: Don DeLillo The Names 225


After one first: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 51


She attended to: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 50


The immense accretion: Susan Howe My Emily Dickinson 105 


She could be: Lydie Salvayre The Power of Flies 1


She drank, she: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 19


Her clothes seemed: Victoria Redel The Border of Truth 39


She had a: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 84


Her family, her: Willa Cather Youth and the Bright Medusa 85


David admires her: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 132


How tender people: Maximilien Robespierre Virtue and Terror 28


"I'm rough and: Rudy Wilson The Red Truck 140 


One often makes: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 42


"What a sweet: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 29


Her voice was: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 49


I will not: Jane Gardam The Flight of the Maidens 211 


David leaned my: Don DeLillo The Names 131


He was stretched: Colette The Pure and the Impure 44


He puts on: Ludwig Wittgenstein Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946-47 63


If there is: Samuel Beckett Disjecta 65


Though he was: Voltaire Zadig 21


Even more commendable: Voltaire Zadig 21


Very quickly, he: James Blake The Joint 183 


He talked incessantly: Virginia Woolf Orlando 91


He was adequately: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 205 


Flushed with his: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 137


I've been told: Montaigne Selected Essays 15 


David recalled dimly: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 205


Not that there: Edmund White City Boy 80


That is how: John Banville The Infinities 7 


He spent his: Alan Bennett Writing Home 570


Although none of: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 15 


I am interested: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 72


It is impossible: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems 221


Today is not. Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 14


I swear I: Elizabeth Bishop One Art 529


But what kind: Adam Phillips Going Sane 17 


We long for: Robert Lowell Collected Prose 192


Life and death: Gertrude Stein Wars I Have Seen 121


I believe in: Noel Coward Lyrics 73


My life is: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems 146


I live in: Susan Howe My Emily Dickinson 38


(Like Holden Caulfield: James Blake The Joint 234 


All of us: W. G. Sebald Austerlitz 71


The Zen masters: Daisetz T. Suzuki Zen and Japanese Culture 7


All work is: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems 112


Shall we make: Maximilien Robespierre Virtue and Terror 115


The story that: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 1 


To say that: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions 480


 This is my: Christopher Priest The Glamour 2 


Not my usual: David McConnell The Firebrat 3




Day before yesterday: Elizabeth Bishop One Art 336 


I got drunk: Paul Klee The Diaries of Paul Klee 186 


I wasn't good: August Kleinzahler Cutty One Rock 80 


That was about: Jean Echenoz I'm Gone 12 


Soon I'd be: Edmund White My Lives 221 


I took a: Charles Henri Ford Like Water From a Bucket 198 


A black man: Virginia Woolf Orlando 56 


The world to: Thomas Bernhard Prose 127 


A part of: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 318 


I didn't want: David McConnell Firebrat 2 


I was amazed: Shohaku Okumura Living By Vow 133 


I was lost: Dante trans. Mary Jo Bang The Inferno 15


Loneliness rose to: George W. S. Trow In the Context of No Context 49 


When I got: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 162 


A sound of: Robert Bolaño Amulet 27 


Who comes here: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis 


Sometimes a venturesome: Mark Merlis American Studies 59


(O the weakness: Maximilien Robespierre Virtue and Terror 104 


Still, the only: Mark Merlis American Studies 57 


Ding-dong: Richard Rodriguez Brown 51 


A minute later: Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts 139 


I blushed intensely: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 14


Moving, as I: Fran Lebowitz Reader 137


The child was: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 68


We shook hands: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 122


He seemed bloodless: Paula Fox Poor George 18


I was all: Rob Stephenson Passes Through 27 


Silence: Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy 7 


The uncertainty lasted: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 11 


I would not: Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 5 


There are only: Jean Genet The Declared Enemy 10 


A shiver ran: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 84


 It was a: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 21 


He looked extremely: James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son 157


 "Joe, how are: Charles Dickens Great Expectations 255 


The visitor glided: Aidan Higgins Notes from a Receding Past 146 


He gives me: Anne Landsman The Rowing Lesson 177


 "I haf someding: Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 23


 He looked at: Fyodor Dostoevsky The House of the Dead 230 


"Please answer me: Albert Camus The Plague 50


 How can I: Theophile Gautier Mademoiselle de Maupin 134 


The question was: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will Show 122


 I do not: Diane Williams It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender Hearted Nature 85 


I don't want: Ivy Compton-Burnett Darkness and Day 7


Absolute silence: Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 49


 "And besides, don't: Evan S. Connell Mrs. Bridge 122


 This is a: Denis Donoghue American Classics 238


 "Well well well: Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange 147 


Unconditional surrender: Gertrude Stein Wars I Have Seen 110 


Is that right: Mary McCarthy The Group 310 


"You bet!" Joe: Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion 492 


"No harm in: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 60


 "I guess some: David McConnell The Silver Hearted 125


 He noticed then: Kenzaburo Oe A Personal Matter 86


"Don't worry," I: Geoff Dyer Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence 26


"Daddy was talking: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 86 


"Your father is: Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 24


This was all: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 3 


"I am the: Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 152


"I like your: Plato Collected Dialogues 587


"De bargain it: Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 25


 It was the: Giacomo Casanova History of My Life 932 


One is always: James Lasdun The Horned Man 125 


All was greyness: W. G. Sebald After Nature 65


"I haven't figured: Binnie Kirshenbaum Pure Poetry 50 


"But you really: Dezso Kosztalanyi Skylark 76


And so we: James Danziger American Photographs (introduction, no page numbers)


Phew: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 522


That night, after: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 125


 The twilight desert: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 127 


What does this: Daniel Dennett Consciousness Explained 130 


The rain beat: Anton Chekhov The Portable Chekhov 384


All night long: Philip Roth Professor of Desire 262


The dream is: Bruce Duffy The World As I Found It 31


The lamp is: Samuel Beckett Disjecta 22



But whirligig Time: Richard Rodriguez Brown 143


I awoke, yet: John Ashbery Flow Chart 192


Lost in darkness: David Lynch Lost Highway xi 


Living with a: Chris Kutschera The Kurdish National Movement 94 


The first three: Amy Hempel At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom 43


My artistic nature: Lydie Salvayre Portrait of the Artist as a Domesticated Animal 23 


It was my: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 31


Suspense is fascinating: Nick Piombino Contradicta 20 


It is fear: Montaigne Selected Essays 25 


I regret sometimes: Guy Hocquenghem Screwball Asses 16 


The taboo gives: Adam Phillips Equals 58 


But most men: Alan Bennett Writing Home 64 


Fear tweaks the: Christopher Isherwood A Single Man 9 


So David tells: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 11 


Naturally: Merle Miller On Being Different 16 


Though blue, the: Albert Camus The Plague 36 


Very strange: David Lynch Lost Highway 17 


To look at: Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will 10


"I suppose my: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children 7 


"I know you: Andre Tellier Twilight Men 72 


From the first: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 10 


"I wonder why: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children 17 


Few emotions are: W. G. Sebald On the Natural History of Destruction 129


She sounded slightly: Colm Toibin The Master 252


Her voice softened: Heinrich Boll The Silent Angel 139 


She was capable: Wendy Moffat A Great Unrecorded History 7 


"Oh, well-behaved: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 18 


A hard-bitten: Virginia Woolf Orlando 40 


She's insane and: Mary Jo Bang Inferno 18 


At this very: Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day 48 


Poor Eleanor, how: Edward St Aubyn At Last 104


When we reflect: Shunryu Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind 39 


In a flurry: Susanna Pinney, ed. I'll Stand by You: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner 13


She was on: W. Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 212


Her beauty seemed: Andrew Holleran Nights In Aruba 34 


"In this heat,": Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 55 


It was a: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will Show 85 


New York on: Anita Brookner Look at Me 41 


Her unassailable assumption: Jane Gardam Faith Fox 63 


She often refers: Peter Cameron Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You 57 



There all the: James Joyce Ulysses 37 


She was silent: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 268


But her beauty: Bill Pronzini The Hidden 41 


Her feelings came: NOON 2007 ed., Diane Williams 160 


She stressed her: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 257 


Naturally she is: Gertrude Stein Wars I Have Seen 146 


"David," she said: Honoré de Balzac Lost Illusions 505 


Brava!: Lydie Salvayre Portrait of the Artist as a Domesticated Animal 179


She stood there: H. Rider Haggard She 161  


I am but: H. Rider Haggard She 187


In any case: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 159 


Anxiety like a: Leo Lerman The Grand Surprise 511 


Anxiety being the: David Markson Wittgenstein's Mistress 72 


I expected sympathy: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 239



The weather had: Joris-Karl Huysmans Against Nature 166 


It was hot: Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy 514


I spent that: James Lasdun The Horned Man 161 


I was lying: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 75


I read it: Shohaku Okumura Living By Vow 133


The only fact: Denis Donoghue American Classics 205


I like to: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems 216 


There is no: Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 48


Above me, in: H. G. Wells The Time Machine 118


Here we are: Celine Death on the Installment Plan 15


Take a few: B. K. S. Iyengar Light on Yoga 22 


I felt naked: H. G. Wells The Time Machine 27


So I enter: B. K. S. Lyengar Light on Yoga 394


In many respects: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy 195


What stumps me: Lucia Perillo I've Heard the Vultures Singing 18


Everything was becoming: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 84 


I kept having: Gordon Lish Zimzum 75


Why do we: Slavoj Zizek Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? 196


I used to: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 1 


But gay men: Edmund White City Boy 80


We always worry: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 53


I am almost: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 31


The razor-sharp: Robert Bolaño Amulet 49



My decision to: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 385


I lacked both: Alex Ross Listen to This 7


I am forty: Kenneth Koch 1000 Avant-Garde Plays 19 


Beneath everything else: Edmund White Nocturnes for the King of Naples 88


The place was: Graham Greene The Heart of the Matter 8 


The problem is: Iannis Xenakis Formalized Music 29


I opened the: Teju Cole Open City 164


Generally, even then: David Markson Wittgenstein's Mistress 240 


A lost soul: Robert Frost The Notebooks of Robert Frost 373


That's me: Sherrie Eldridge 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew 169


The psychological feeling: Theodor Adorno The Stars Down to Earth 128


I dropped David: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 211


"Did you know: H. Rider Haggard She 81


Several times he: Colm Toibin The Master 248


David extended his: Carl Van Vechten Parties 173 


"I'm so sorry: Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 62


The things one: David Markson Wittgenstein's Mistress 53 


"I am glad: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 12


The irony of: Charles Kaiser 1968 in America 239


"How are you: Alfred Chester The Exquisite Corpse 49


He does not: Giacomo Casanova History of My Life 931 


"I am the: Andre Tellier Twilight Men 24


There was a: Walter Kirn My Hard Bargain 69 


But soon this: Huysmans Against Nature 207


What, if anything: Harold Bloom Hamlet: Poem Unlimited 86


What was the: H. Rider Haggard She 96


Who will speak: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 54


"Which cathedral do: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 37


A moan burst: Carl Van Vechten Parties 130 


He was handsome: Henry James The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw 149


His broad shoulders: Edmund White My Lives 222


"But you have: John Ashbery April Galleons 24


You are too: Gore Vidal Two Sisters 14


It's too serious: Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 105


Amused, I nodded: Colette Pure and Impure 15


"I may be: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 7


We will see: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 186


 "Fortunately, I know: J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey 157 


"I'm interested in: David McConnell The Silver Hearted 122


"Ah.": David McConnell The Silver Hearted 123


His leisure hours: Alex Ross Listen to This 126


There is, of: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 19 


He was young: Virginia Woolf Orlando 28


And so on: Roland Barthes Reader xiii


He was a: James Joyce Portait of the Artist as a Young Man 192 


Take care of: Susanna Pinney, ed. I'll Stand by You: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner 19 


Do you love: Kenneth Koch 1000 Avant-Garde Plays 19



The cuckoo came: John Ashbery and James Schuyler A Nest of Ninnies 40


It was a: James Joyce Dubliners 31


Summer was a: Rudy Wilson The Red Truck 129


Inwardness, calm, solitude: Roland Barthes Mourning Diary 100


No, that's too: Merle Miller On Being Different 19


Silence: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 192


At one point: Ron Padgett Joe 24


I must photograph: Charles Henri Ford Like Water from a Bucket 153 


Little ineffectual unquenchable: E.M. Forster A Passage to India 120


It was the: Virginia Woolf Orlando 85


He was looking: Thomas Bernhard "The Joiner" German Short Stories ed., David Constantine 263


He is not: John Banville The Infinities 9


Solitude had acted: J-K. Huysmans Against Nature 84


At school, he: Edgar Saltus Mr. Incoul's Misadventure 4


The other children: Edmund White Genet xv


In the meantime: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 16


There was an: David Wojnarowicz Memories That Smell Like Gasoline 27


He's a beautiful: James Blake The Joint 167 


It hurts to: John Waters Role Models 294


I have often: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 295


I admit I: Edmund White Genet 100 


(In Wilde's phrase: Roland Barthes Reader xvi 


Similarly, I sometimes: David Levithan The Full Spectrum 172 


We can only: Ivy Compton-Burnett Darkness and Day 8



By Thanksgiving, Joe: Ron Padgett Joe 87


He stayed at: Filip Noterdaeme The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart 73


He asked me: James Blake The Joint 167


"Even if there: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 149 


I don't want: Sam Massey Return of the Greek 47


I am like: Conor Cruise O'Brien Camus 29


We're going to: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 25 


Salvation lies in: Sarah Bakewell How to Live 35


"Can't you smell: J-K Huysmans Against Nature 118 


"What is it?: Brenda McCreight Parenting Your Adopted Older Child 32


I suddenly thought: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 3


 He was the: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 85


What had been: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 21 


It was like: Franz Kafka The Castle 27


"Yes, yes, I: Graham Greene The Heart of the Matter 31


I feel in: D. H. Lawrence Selected Letters 260


You must have: Max Ewing Going Somewhere 79


You're not angry: O. Henry The Four Million 67


"No," said Joe: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 105 


I want his: James Joyce Ulysses 46


"I think that: Sam Massey Return of the Greek 65 


Anyway, you'll get: Mark Merlis American Studies 168


"Will you?" said: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 584 


"What is that: John Banville The Infinities 11


"Men are such: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 53


Score one for: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 55 


The world was: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 192


The nature of: Andrezj Walicki A History of Russian Thought 24


But in all: James Blake The Joint 313


I get bored: Umberto Eco The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana 327 


This is the: Alan Bennett Writing Home xiii


To me there: Ivy Compton-Burnett Darkness and Day 14 


In the course: J-K Huysmans Against Nature 118


But the city: Gilbert Highet Poets in a Landscape 162


"We are both: Charles Henri Ford Like Water From a Bucket 214


He was no: Edmund White Rimbaud 35


"You're probably wondering: Plato Gorgias 12 


He begins to: Giles and Miller, eds. The Arts of Contemplative Care 75



Joe looked at: Charles Dickens Great Expectations 559


Every heartstring is: Edmund White Rimbaud 21 


It would be: W. H. Auden Forewords and Afterwords 292


It took him: Rudyard Kipling Kim 118


The eloquence of: Dickens Barnaby Rudge 632 


The silence speaks: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 10


Like a big: Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life 2


He knew I: Lincoln Kirstein By With To and From 70


Thank God for: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 5 


You can count: Sherrie Eldridge 20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew 143 


Everybody knows you: John Waters Role Models 264 


"I'm the man: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 84 


He knocked at: Charles Kaiser The Gay Metropolis 21 


"I am!": Charles Dickens Great Expectations 164 


But many questions: Hungarian Photographs 26 


Either way, I: George W. S. Trow Bullies 4




David watched my: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 101 


"You hear what: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 10 


We must be: Charles Dickens Barnaby Rudge 109 


You're so reluctant: Peter Cameron Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You 55


Am I upsetting: J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey 196 


He looked over: Sarah Schulman The Child 19


"Oh, you'll see: E. F. Benson David Blaize 54 


Here he poured: Virginia Woolf Orlando 89 


Joe could only: Charles Dickens Barnbaby Rudge 633 


"You're useless: Binnie Kirshenbaum Pure Poetry 55 


He told him: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 12 


"It's not my: Thomas Bernhard The Loser 14 


Don't we all: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 68 


We identify with: Tim Dean Unlimited Intimacy 23 


David gave a: E. F. Benson David Blaize 31 


He crawled back: John Banville Doctor Copernicus 85 


Words, words, words: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 60 


Every morning: Thomas Bernhard Prose 125


He looked forward: Colm Toibin The Master 233 


Well, never mind: Plato Gorgias 13 


We observe our: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of Life 98




Back in the: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 385


Even the self-deprecating: Joseph P. Lash: Eleanor and Franklin 179


We spent the: Robert Bolaño Amulet 105


We discovered (very: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions 68


Eleanor gave a: Ivy Compton-Burnett Parents and Children 69


She was wearing: John Fowles The Magus 14


It was that: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 191


I viewed her: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 40


She flung herself: Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the Dark 62


"What a city: John Ashbery Flow Chart 189


Paris is the: Charles Henri Ford Like Water from a Bucket 208


When I look: David Lehman, ed. Great American Prose Poems 128


This is in: Conor Cruise O'Brien Camus 78


"Is it a: J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians 84 


"Do you know: Gioia Timpanelli Sometimes the Soul 151 


As if: Thomas Dumm Loneliness as a Way of Life 34 


I rose from: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 42 


I've had it: Robert Bolaño Amulet 35


Let them think: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 26


But in France: Milan Kundera Testaments Betrayed 181


This is real: Adam Thirlwell Delighted States 88


Swarms of crows: Franz Kafka The Castle 11


The fact is: Huysmans Against Nature 181


To me it: William Shakespeare Hamlet (Yale) 63


"Well," she says: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever 117


She moved in: Jean Genet Querelle 152 


She was as: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 11


She was bizarre: John Fowles The Magus 14 


"No means no: Bill Pronzini The Hidden 44


Perhaps you can: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de Maupin 97 


"If you're hungry: Blair Niles Strange Brother 130


She went back: Rachel Ingalls Mrs. Caliban 63


Her thoughts were: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 76 


She is inexhaustibly: Theopile Gautier Mademoiselle de Maupin 99 


And though there: Sylvia Townsend Warner Summer Will Show 87


Her eyes sparkled: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 8


What can I: Charles Burkhart I. Compton-Burnett 50


She did not: Carson McCullers Member of the Wedding 22


I understand: Plato Collected Dialogues 619


A woman whom: Colette Pure and Impure 43


I had been: Adam Phillips Equals 122


To poeticize oneself: Søren Kierkegaard Diary of a Seducer 112 


It is something: Jacques Lacan Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis 113 


She turned: H. Rider Haggard She 231


"What have you: Henry Green Doting 42 


She repeated all: Neil Bartlett Ready to Catch Him 198 


For if there: Ronald Firbank Three More Novels 52


Imagine what that: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 144 


"You think of: Jenny McPhee A Man of No Moon 208 


She was really: Lydie Salvayre Company of Ghosts 15 


I am nonviolent: John Francis Hunter Gay Insider 27 


Luckily, the: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no page numbers)


It's still too: John Ashbery April Galleons 23


"I wish I: Noel Coward Pomp and Circumstance 49 


The indifference in: Jorges Luis Borges Collected Fictions 284


What makes us: Adam Phillips On Balance 267 


The evening ended: Glen Baxter Returns to Normal (no page numbers)


The great revolutions: Justin O'Brien Camus 34


 If, as John: Adam Phillips On Balance 93




Now that the: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 210 


At night this: Alfred Chester Looking for Genet 172 


Cars were rare: Justin Taylor Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever 3 


The black cattle: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 175 


Night music: Marlene Van Niekerk Agaat 2 


Most of the: Clive Fisher Hart Crane 251 


But the people: Elizabeth Gilbert Last American Man 215 


The high cold: James Joyce Dubliners 33 


2:00-5:00: Susan Sontag Reborn 17

 

The pen was: John Ashbery April Galleons 1


I could go: Joshua Mehigan The Optimist 58  


I wrote about: Robert Bolaño By Night in Chile 84 


Every book is: Helen Keller The World I Live In 14 


How deep-seated: Glenway Wescott Continual Lessons 169 


Like an earnest: Kenneth Burke Towards a Better Life 24 


It is up: Charles Guignon On Being Authentic 130 


These are the: Adam Phillips On Balance 236 


They lived und: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 28 


What a difference: Pascal Pensees 168 


I am forever: John Francis Hunter The Gay Insider 78 


Silly seasons: Harold Bloom Anatomy of Influence 13 


Tinkering over sentences: David McConnell Firebrat 3 


Lately, my sexual: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 45


Revenge fucking: Michael Herr Kubrick 88 


I felt excellent: Walter Kirn My Hard Bargain 103


Nonetheless my condition: David Markson Wittgenstein's Mistress 133


Loners can be: David McConnell Firebrat 3


It was all: Frederick Seidel Poems 1959-2009 9 


Unending flights: W. G. Sebald After Nature 61


Other people see: Adam Phillips On Balance 224


I entered silently: Edmund White Noctures for the King of Naples 84


Then I stood: Daniel Kehlmann Me and Kaminsky 94 


After that it: Graham Greene May We Borrow Your Husband 140


Writers are a: Justin O'Brien Camus 103


Our ears: Henry James Portrait of a Lady 311 


The better you: D. H. Lawrence Studies in Classic American Literature 42


Yet I could: John Ashbery Flow Chart 178


I am beginning: Andre Gide The Counterfeiters 205


I have always: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 11


And this must: Ludwig Wittgenstein Notebooks 1914-1916 13


My mother's femaleness: Elizabeth Hardwick Sleepless Nights 152



My mother was: Georges Bataille The Blue of Noon 12


This was her: Dezso Kosztalanyi Skylark 15


And walking in: Djuna Barnes Nightwood 61


For nothing could: Lydie Salvayre Company of Ghosts 18 


The dizziness and: E. F. Benson The Freaks of Mayfair 53


Women baffled me: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 33


I was born: Wayne Koestenbaum Moira Orfei in Aigues Mortes 6 


It was an: Mary McCarthy The Group 292


It was 1968: Paul Griffiths Modern Music 173


A sordid sexual: David McConnell Firebrat 81


From the beginning: Mikis Theodorakis Journal of Resistance 29 


It's something almost: David Wojnarowicz Memories That Smell Like Gasoline 47


Grown-ups tried: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 69 


I was a: Jean Genet The Declared Enemy 8 


My mother was: Andrew Holleran Nights in Aruba 33 


Days and nights: Thomas Bernhard Prose 121 


After I had: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 7 


I knew that: George Orwell An Age Like This 1 


I became a: Richard Rodriguez Brown 147 


Land of noble: Walicki A History of Russian Thought 75 


New York City: Hart Crane Libray of America: Complete Poems and Selected Letters 306 


New York seemed: James Blake The Joint 309


Meanwhile, the possibility: Paul Griffiths Modern Music 150


Thank you, Proust: Michael Cunningham By Nightfall 17 


I was glad: Denton Welch Maiden Voyage 35


Then the amazing: E. F. Benson The Freaks of Mayfair 111 


My mother wanted: John Cheever Stories 691


"My dear," she: F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 40 


My childhood was: Fran Lebowitz Reader 38 


Insanity, of course: Mark Rowlands The Philosopher and the Wolf 18 


We find our: Charles Guignon On Being Authentic 87



My mother has: Susan Sontag I, etcetera: Stories 133 


My father went: Teju Cole Open City 188


Though long dead: Gore Vidal Palimpsest 256


"I didn't," said Joe: O. Henry The Four Million 67


My experience of: John Cage Musicage 60 


Perhaps the least: Fran Lebowitz Reader 88


Yet any distinction: Harold Bloom Anatomy of Influence 4



David and I: J. M. Barrie The White Bird 267


We had been: W. Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 89  


(Talking, talking: Gardner Grendel 8 


It seemed that: AA Bronson Lana 149

 "This traffic jam: J. G. Ballard Cocaine Nights 11 

Outside, the land: Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 14 Burnett 66 


"What seems beautiful: Charles Burkhart The Art of I. Compton



Something lovely happened: Justin Spring Secret Historian 166 


There was zest: Jean Rhys After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie 37


 A policeman entered: Daniel Kehlmann Measuring the World 11 


With a stick: Danilo Kiš A Tomb for Boris 9


Here he drank: Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure 119


"Are you trying: James Joyce Dubliners 119


"I came here: Daniel Mendelsohn The Elusive Embrace 62 


He bowed and: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions 383


And that was: Thomas Bernhard Frost 11 


And then there: Virginia Woolf Diaries Vol V. 359



Silence is a: Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will 18


I have a: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 82



I am writing: Jean Genet Funeral Rites 13


And I'm still: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 21


Always alone: James Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 196 


This is a: Daisetz T. Suzuki Zen and Japanese Culture 232


I move books: Brane Mozetic Banalities 8


Our solutions are: Adam Phillips On Balance 272


Man has become: Guy Hocquenghem Screwball Asses 56


How did we: Giacomo Leopardi Canti 149


As the activity: Susan Sontag Styles of Radical Will 4 


This is, as: Roland Barthes Critical Essays 12


The only good: Jean-Christophe Valtat 03 48


It is endless: John Daido Loori The Eight Gates of Zen 44 


Forget it; forget: Jean Rhys After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie 28 



Zee End: James Joyce Finnegans Wake 28