I promise to start talking about poetry again on Wednesday. Or Thursday. Or next month. Or whenever the election is over. Or, more accurately, whenever I'm over the election.

When I get around to it, I might clarify my thinking on Ashbery, since that raised some questions for a few folks. I'd also like to say a word about Alan Davies, a poet that The Poker turned me on to. Just picked up a 1990 book of his, Candor, which I'm really enjoying. It's a mix of prose and often erotic poetry, with much of the prose being ruminations on particular books, authors, and essays—commentary on Languagey writing and writers like Kit Robinson, Robert Grenier, and Robert Benson's Blue Book, which Jonathan has mentioned. In other words, it's a blog avant la lettre. But a really good one. Two useful sentences I've plucked from it: "No one writes well because someone else writes badly." And: "I always thought I would lose my virginity during a piano lesson, like everybody else."

Okay, I guess that is a word. That I said.

Vote, goddamnit.