4



In Minima Moralia, Theodor Adorno says: "The more complex personality, unwilling to be pulled down, has to observe the strictest consideration for the inconsiderate". No one wonders in which of the two personalities Adorno saw himself.

3


Much modern poetry has a lot of winking in it, which is a kind of a need to please. I think I must not like to be pleased. This need to please brings with it a sense of being unsure with one's self, with what one is saying, as it foregrounds the desire of response from the audience. There is a lack of confidence in what one is saying, as the test of it resides in the reader. I can't stand this feeling of being toyed with, playing the straight man, etc. Art, to me, is not about being nice.

2


How egotistical to think that words know me and my concerns, and are reflecting them in them.

1


When one says that another is tactful is one really saying that he or she is adept at hiding lies?

I will no longer be reviewing.

I am going to leave the site up, at least for the near future. The "Press" side of Esther Press may actualize itself at some point, but it also may not.

In any case, thank you for sending me your books, chapbooks, and literary magazines.

Thank you for reading.

James