Over the course of the last year I've entered two chapbook contests.  Clearly a mistake.  Kind of like playing the lottery.  I knew in doing it I was going to lose.  Still I did it.  How stupid was that?

*

At the gym this morning on the stationary bike I read the first 50 pages of the facsimile edition of William Carlos Williams' Spring and All.  It's been at least 30 years since the last time I read this text.  But I'm appreciating it at another level now.

*

Listening now to the B52s.

*

I really believe that the future of poetry is aligned with the future of philosophy.  I hope philosophy comes to realize that too--that it needs poetry and improvisation.  Of course both disciplines will need to flake off from institutional constraints and think more and more in terms of collaboration.

*

Thunder in the background.  The remnants of tropical storm Isaac have worked their way up from the Gulf.

*

The flame red gladiolas on our kitchen table mesmerize me.

*