I'm trying to record my cd. My chair creaks and ruins my recording. Or I stumble over words and swallow syllables. Should I actually practice before I try to do it? Naw... I freeze up when I have to say the words in french. The conversion to MP3 and burning of the cd is actually the simplest part of the process.

Now I have no interest in defining the period style of recent American poetry. What percentage of Simic and Merwin, Tate and Strand, Orr and Ashbery, it contains. What is clear is my lack of interest in poetry written in this style.

There were upwards of 4500 people protesting war in Forest Park yesterday. The post-dispatch (local Pulitzer company fishwrap) reported a figure of 2500.

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I delivered copies of the class anthology to Mrs. Wight (2nd grade teacher). She was effusively grateful. Julia came up with the title: "Poems About Everything."

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I have new books by Davidson (Post Hoc) and F. Howe to read. Maybe Fanny will lead me back to Susan H. again-- a poet I was interested in at one time but haven't been reading so much in the last five years or so. Ron reports younger poets in S.F. no longer know who Ron Silliman is (aside from being author of Silliman's blog). But young people were always lacking in historical sense. (I almost wrote "stupid"). It takes a while to develop this sense of past, even very recent past. They don't know who Creeley or Levertov are either. [Later: This is not too accurate: I was referring to something that Ron had said in his blog: young poets twenty years ago unable to match the names of these poets to their books.]

I'm working on a definition of period style for 1980s U.S. "mainstream poetry." I'll think about it as I drive to Kansas this morning and report back a little later.

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Wonderful invitations to collaborate in journals and magazines all over the world flow (or trickle) into my email inbox. Keep them coming please!

I figured out how to record a voice mp3. I just record on audio track for a non-existent digital movie using my imovie program, then open up itunes, find the audio track, somewhere on my hard drive, and convert it to an mp3. Then I can burn a cd directly off of itunes.

I can go to Subterraneum books today, to see if there is anything I've missed on my mission to rid them of all valuable poetry books. I think I'll give the bloggin' a rest this weekend. Why do I impose on myself the obligation of writing every day?

A reader writes and asks me to choose between Pieces and Crystal Lithium, but not to explain the reason behind my choice. Sort of a postmodern "Proust questionaire." I choose Crystal Lithium.

Here is my questionaire: fill out an "NCAA bracket," but substitute the names of poets, going all the way to the "final four." In other words, start with your 64 favorite poets, arrange them in brackets, and play them off against each other until you have a winner. Poetry is not supposed to be competitive, I realize, but I love top 100 lists and silly exercises like this.

Kenneth Koch's theory of poetic language actually helped me to teach a poem I had not intended to teach, in my hospitalized colleague's course. It was an over-the-top Romantic poem by Ernestina de Champourcín, but I could justify the language in terms of the communicative act: If you were telling death to take you away, then you probably would choose this self-consciously "poetic" language. It has a sort of "decorum" or appropriateness to situation, even though it is not to my taste. Within this style the poem is quite effective, even well written.

I started Fanny Howe's "Indivisible" and "Freeing History" this week. I'm starting to see a pattern in all her novels. I also checked out from library books by Susan Schultz and Lisa Jarnot. It is a lot less expensive than purchasing each book I want to read.

More long, wonderful emails from David Shapiro. He should really have a blog; he writes more than Heriberto. First he would have to get his own computer with a spell checker.

I'll work on more ideas for audio posts for next week. Get my poetry cd together.

Johnny Mercer's "Midnight Sun." Music was by Johnny Burke and Lionel Hampton (1947). I promise not to sing it for you:

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace, rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight,
I could see the Midnight Sun.

I can't explain the silver rain that found me--or was that a moonlight veil?
The music of the universe around me, or was that a nightingale?
And then your arms miraculously found me, suddenly the sky turned pale,
I could see the Midnight Sun.

Was there such a night, it's a thrill I still don't quite believe,
But after you were gone, there was still some stardust on my sleeve.

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember, and the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December, icy white and crystalline.
But oh my darling always I'll remember when your lips were close to mine,
And we saw the Midnight Sun.

Below please find Audio sound-poem based on Barbara Guest's poetry.

audblog audio post

There's got to be a more direct route to get my own voice into my itunes or cdburner than recording a message on the phone and then downloading an audblog post. Please advise (mac users). I do use my imovie program to play around with voice recording, though it uses an awful lot of disk space so I always erase my work. I did a sound poem once I wasn't displeased with, recording my voice over itself while reading various poems of Barbara Guest. I think I have it still.

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I like tracking my blog traffic. People come to this blog mainly via Jordan Davis (Million Poems), David Hess, Josh, Stephanie, Joe Massey, Nick P., Nada, and Laurable, in approximately that order of frequency. From Equanimity or Silliman if there is a recent ad hoc link. Elective affinities that don't displease me in the least.

I tried that audio blog free trial. What was cool about it was when I listened back to my post, my computer automatically downloaded it to my itunes. I could then turn around and burn a cd of myself reading my own poems in my horrible raspy voice, and send it to friends and enemies, since my computer has a cd burner built in. One of the few perks of this job is this still fairly new iMac.

audblog audio post

Refunfuño en sueños, hago aspavientos
abjuro, reincido

cuando me despierte la guerra no habrá terminado

unos fragmentos de metal que se insinúan
en mi fina sensibilidad de poeta

es mentira que hayamos sido niños
de calurosa paz

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I grumble in dreams, flail about
swear off it, relapse

when I awake the war won't have ended

metal fragments insinuating themselves
into my fine poetic sensibility

it is an illusion that we were ever children
of balmy peace