There is/are only poetics, there is not "a poetic" of this or that. There are emphases within this, or statements of where one is "at" at a particular time. That's why a blog might state a different poetics every day, but in an evolving series. It's temporal and ongoing. You can't have a poetics, in the sense of possession; you can only participate in it. It's thinking I understood something the day before yesterday, but realizing it's only a partial understanding. That is why Alice is right to call poetics bullshit. It is an inherently provisional enterprise. (This is different from someone who never thinks about poetics in the first place.)

Poetics in the neoclassical sense of prescription, how boring is that? Poetics can only be descriptive, in the sense that linguistics is descriptive. Describing what good poets already do, not telling someone what to do. Or worse, what NOT to do.

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Cut down my MLA paper from 18 pages to 8. Ouch. But I could eliminate some "It could be argued that."

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Julia learned most of the first chorus of Rollins' improvisation on "St. Thomas." I found a transcription on the internet. It's 16 measures since the tune is in 16-bar AABC form. The ability to sit down for an hour and work on something like this. Who said kids didn't have concentration. The trick is finding something worthwhile for them to concentrate on.