Re/started reading Margaret & Dusty and When I Was Alive by Alice Notley; Balance as Belief by Wyatt Prunty; a(gain)2st the odds, on the corner to off the corner, Pi in the Skye, and Striking Resemblance by Tina Darragh; From Solids, A Motive for Mayhem, and Climate/Plus by Abigail Child; Wise Why’s Y’s by Amiri Baraka; Made to Seem by Rae Armantrout; Days in the Capital and At the Florida by John Tranter; Some Values of Landscape and Weather and Hours of the Book by Peter Gizzi; One Train by Kenneth Koch; Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems by Wole Soyinka; thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs and Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You by Juliana Spahr; Poems by Echoes by Robert Creeley.

Calvin,

The other night I watched two films. Godard’s Alphaville and Brakhage’s Dog Star Man, going back and forth until I had finished both. Is New York City really that tough, or tough in that way? Is Paul Eluard that important? Does poetry have anything in common with reason and logic? I haven’t decided. Anyway, I’m back from Europe. It will be good to catch up this weekend and see where things have gone in the past month and a half. The best part of my trip wasn’t Venice or seeing how you might put together a corporate art expo; it probably came when I was getting stoned on the train back to Switzerland, rolling through blacked out Italy in a third class sleeper car. I wasn’t thinking whether or not the point of no return is entertainment. I wasn’t thinking about ugly beauty. I just rode out the night and waited for the sun to rise.

as ever,

John

06/19/05

Today, there are large white clouds in the sky. Tonight, I think I'll plan a trip to the library. I haven't been in more than six weeks.

Today, the sky is fully blue.

This morning I finished reading Standard Schaefer's Nova. It was selected by Nick Piombino for the National Poetry Series the year I left college. Somehow I found it in a bookstore in rural Virginia. I had to pay for it with a credit card. It cost ten dollars and ninety-five cents, plus tax. Today seems to be one of those long, slow summer days. I'm guessing. I haven't left the apartment. Nothing is completed, nothing is started. Everything is merely held, awkwardly. I'm convinced. This afternoon I think I'll take a long walk around the pond before reading some of Holderlin's poems. Maybe I'll drink a cup of coffee and have a cigarette as well.

Restarted Marianne Moore's Complete Poems