Running on caffeine fumes, no lunch yet, but the head is buzzing. Bought a couple fo CDs for the first time in a while: the new Bjork and an oldish Ben Folds album (I'm a big fan of ironic/melodramatic pop piano songwriting—he's the straight equivalent of Rufus Wainwright). Almost bought a big Talking Heads compilation but balked at the price. Then listening to a very old REM album in the car driving home set off some sparks and I pulled over to start writing a new poem (that is, a non-Severance Songs poem) for the first time in many, many months. We'll see what develops. REM is one half of the cocktail; the other half comes from a morning spent with strong coffee and Zukofksy's Complete Short Poetry in preparation for Zukofsky/100 this coming weekend. I'm driving down Friday and I'll be in Manhattan until Sunday. Though I'm excited and a bit intimidated by the big names and big ideas that will be filling the rarefied air above Columbia, I probably won't be able to bear many continuous panels on Zuk, so if anyone wants to grab some lunch or a drink or see a matinee maybe (I hear there are all these terrific Chinese films in New York these days), drop me a line.

Be sure and check out Shanna Compton's poems this week at No Tell Motel. Today's is a corker.