Mr. Harmon Returns from One Place to Another
Ai
March 31, 2010
I just found out that Ai is dead. I vividly remember picking up one of her books in my second year of college. Her writing was utterly unlike anything I’d read before. Actually her writing is still unlike anything I’ve ever read, even now that I’m aware of many writers in the same constellation as her.
She wrote — exclusively, almost — about shocking things, but did her poetry ever feel like it was trying to shock you? It was just walking along with you. You knew and it knew that it was taking you somewhere dangerous, but neither you nor it quite wanted to make it stop. Maybe because it seemed just as unsure what was going on as you were?
