Henry Gould's project (his oeuvre, I mean) has a comprehensiveness that certainly fits the modernist sway, but also points to an enveloping commitment that I find admirable. or put it this way, I don't care that 17 new poems arrived somehow (and now must be turned into a chaobook to announce on the Poetics listserv), that magic act doesn't get old, but still, what is it that you embrace beyond production? I like obsession, focus, dedication, tho not in the sense of chaffering venues to accept your poems. I like poems connecting to an active life of process, not just freshened manufacture. hail to thee blithe guy in Providence. I mean, this is going on before your/our eyes, O public eye, this growing work. part 2 of my ramble, vaguely connected, nods to Eileen Tabios's doctrinal acceptance. recognize, as some New York buzz bombs tiresomely can't, that the struggle is human and possible, even as poems sometimes occur. everyone's nervous about their 'wares', because poetry lacks mathematical assertion, or at least, poets so lack. you write 15,000 poems in a year and some hang around and some blow funk. where's the control? oh, it's on your nasty blog!!! not for Eileen, and this is a force to reckon with. not to say I'm a positivist. I'm just another ego in the ego room, so I feel cramped all the time. but in stray moments I remember that I've flailed and flailed, albeit not overly publicly. I have 1000 pages on potential display (Days Poem the marketing exercise), and when I look at it, it is new to me. I feel like the poem's relative, not author. I have no schematic by which the work developed. you know what I am saying. you write by accepting. you cannot, let us say, out think the poem, because the poem aint thinking, it's doing/making. the made/done thing. it is on the poet to be in the positionfor the poem. and the reader, good lord, you are on the same ride, too!

The Official Days Poem Publication Site!

additional exclamation points available upon request

you may notice, in the picture below of DAYS POEM--the book, the reading experience--posing on the stone pointing to Emerson's grave, that someone (not me) placed a dime on top. now, to be frank, I was already creeping myself out taking these pix (and yet...). the dime doesn't seem such a nice gesture. I was creeped out further at Alcott's grave, which had a goodly sprinkling of pennies on the grave itself. I didn't even want to enter DAYS POEM into that image. grave as wishing well? or are the pennies for the ferryman? little late for that. I certainly mean to take a photo op at Walden, which DAYS POEM mentions frequently, and I may even have written some of it there.