Sublime

Without being a writer himself, he could speak the language of writers better than any editor or publisher” one would ever meet.

people like Tranströmer and Ondaatje and Wisława Szymborska are touchstones for me. It’s a long list: George Seferis, Anne Carson, Charles Simic, Sharon Olds, Seamus Heaney: anyone who has found a way to sidestep conventional syntax.

He smelled of chard and metal,

for a staggering, almost punishing memory that held up under the most liquid of late-night conditions.

good blood and a good disposition. One

haole

He was a gaunt young man who seemed suspicious of conversation that strayed outside certain unspecified guidelines.

expurgated

Then he and Scribner discussed a limited edition of William Butler Yeats’s works.