Susan Tedeschi on the headphones. Her blues reach me consistently.

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A lot of unsifted things roiling in me. Can't say that I'm feeling very positive these days. Still...

Got to see oldest daughter, M., this past week. Always a joy. She was in town from the East coast for a few days to help her sister, C., our youngest, after a surgery. We all took turns with babysitting, etc., for the grandkids, but M. did the lion's share.

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Had a great homemade meal tonight. Crab cakes, couscous, salad. Never underestimate the curative powers of real food.

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Watched a documentary about Godard and Truffaut this afternoon. That relationship has always been instructive for me.

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Reading an enormous amount. Still struggling with writing but seeing some glimmers of hope.

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Virtually all the chapbooks,pamphlets, etc, of my work that I thought were going to be published in the past and present year have fallen through for various reasons. This is not unusual in my experience. Still...a pissedoffness is starting to build in me. Be warned: I'm going to put a manuscript together this year that's getting out one way or another. And I'm going to get out and read somewhere too. I'm feeling the itch. It probably won't be pretty. It definitely won't be pretty. But I'm pretty certain that there will be some big fun. If only in my own mind.

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What is poetry anyway? A series of investigations is the simplest response. I've often spoken of poetry as an epistemological adventure. And that's true enough. Perhaps it's truer to speak of poetry as a series of mediations/interventions. Maybe poetry is a series of translations. Yeah. That.

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