my friend Michael wants us to meet up at this reading. we have friends coming over saturday, however, so it is no go. I remain interested.

but.

that picture.

of the dead elk.

bugs me.

is the guy with knife and gun Buck Downs? I realize, writing this, that I assume a lot as I wriggle with the inferences of the picture. no, I do not like the idea of hunting but, yes, I eat meat. file my judgments, which I shan't even enumerate here, under whatever. it is the poetry not the poet that is of interest, as is proven by all our faded heroes. still, killing an elk seems wasteful. I mean, the rare opportunity to see a elk, and then to plug it. I could be sadly unprepared to face the irony of this picture. it seems creepy as a promo picture, tho, doesn't it? I would still want to hear Downs read, and of course Eileen Myles, but a part of me would think of the elk.

I have a 4 gig iPod Nano now. I could expatiate on the technical wonder but instead will mention my nephew's great grandfather, who died some years back at the age of 101. he used to be so astonished at modern cars. his little car could barely make it up the hills of New Hampshire but that was quite the improvement over whatever 1st car he remembered. one day he extolled the raw power of his vehicle to my nephew, who was about 4. my nephew said with exasperation, face it, Grampie, it's a Vega. not really, it's a paradigm shift. so anyway, I have a day's worth of music on the pod, isn't that lovely. and then I started listening to podcasts, and this is quite a wonder. one more step onto the egalitarian slope. I have mostly just scoured iTunes for science or history podcasts but the potential exists for grander, personal usage. indeed, I'm thinking of reading Days Poem as a podcast. I'd be doing it even now but I'm working out the kinks of recording. the built in microphone of this laptop isn't getting my quiet voice well, and the other microphone I have seems to cause a hum. but I will get it out there. the poetry scene commitment to imprimatur is, frankly, just stones in the passway. we can publish ourselves in all manner of expression without waiting on editorial acceptance. let's not squawk about how self-serving this is. if you're going to write, you might as well air it out. the podcast, the blog, these are furtherances, as brilliant as you choose to make them.

I am excited, pleased and furthermore that Stephen Ellis now has A BLOG. Stephen is a terrific poet for whom politics and poetics are eternally, let us say grandly, entwined. I hope, as one does with every new blogger, that he sustains the project. his writing genuinely illuminates me.