zipless poetry

The other night I dropped by McNally Jackson, a really lovely independent bookstore in New York's SoHo, to see Erica Jong read from her new collection of poems, Love Comes First. I'm a huge fan of Jong's brilliant, fabulously rude 'Fear of Flying', so it was great to see her talk and a pleasure to hear her witty and wise poetry, which is simultaneously accessible and thought-provoking, as you'd expect from a writer of Jong's stature. That's not to say, however, that I'd swap her prose for her poems. I've spent much of my time in the US reading the poems of John Ashbery, and Jong is not in the same class. But that's a mean observation to make, and perhaps an unworthy comment. What's more important is that I really enjoyed Jong's reading, and am very glad I caught it.