KochI just finished New Addresses by Kenneth Koch (2000). This was my first  poetry eBook. Reading it gave me insight into how to improve my own eBook, especially in regards to page breaks.

I also now have plenty of thoughts about my Kindle Paperwhite.

I bought a faux-leather cover for mine. It really helps make the book feel tactile. I bend back the cover and run a finger along the edge.

I'm a heavy marginalia-maker and highlighter. It's hard to use an eBook highlighter and note-creator. Notes are connected to the text but saved separately. You access them as one entire list with links back to the text. Slightly cumbersome in that it takes a step or two to connect the two mentally.

Highlighting is kludge. Sometimes you have to try a few times with your index finger to highlight all the words you want. Sometimes it takes 3-4  taps. It makes you appreciate the technological brilliance of a pen rolling its ball over paper. So much easier. And notes on a piece paper are actually easier to access and to read.

However, these issues aren't a deal-breaker for me. The eReader isn't so cumbersome that I'm willing to give up eBook technology. Changes in tools take some time to adjust your habits around. They take a mental switch. eBooks are cheaper and you get them faster and they save paper. I’ll still be using them for poetry books I don’t intend to collect on a shelf or for books I might not otherwise buy due to the expense.

As for the book itself, New Addresses had to grow on me. It was a strange experience of not getting it for the first third of the book. Then I got it suddenly, somewhere around the poem "To Jewishness." All the poems are direct addresses to concepts like Jewishness or the French language or testosterone or driving. Once I got it, I really got it and liked almost every poem.  

The poem addressed to all his old address made me want to try this entire scheme next year for my NaPoWriMo project.