Other books arriving: Antonio Méndez Rubio's Poesía sin mundo quotes me on page 39. Suddenly, my words take on an authority and conviction that they didn't have when they were only my words. The translation into Spanish helps.

Méndez Rubio makes basically the same argument that I make about recent Spanish poetry, but in a different theoretical language. I am happy, both that he reaches the same conclusions, and that his language is a different one.

A book of sonnets by Ben Lerner, from Copper Canyon Press: The Lichtenberg Figures.

Differentials by M. Perloff (this one I had to pay for.)

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Not to be Sillimanesque, but the hits to this blog in the past few days have been much heavier than usual. I can't really explain why. I haven't even been attempting to induce a gastrointestinal disorder in Mike Snider. Could it be my comment on the "poetry reading chant"?

Speaking of which, if anyone has an mp3 of this chant, I would like to have it so I can analyze it more accurately. Also, does anyone have an opinion as to its gender distribution? My first impulse is to say that women do it more often. What well-known poets use the "poetry reading chant"? I'm not talking about all pretentious modes of reading poetry, only the particular chant in which every accented syllable is extended and sung at the same pitch, and the voice drops a perfect fifth for the unaccented syllables.