JUST FOUND THIS MESSAGE from my webhost:
Your server has been scheduled to be transferred on Sunday October 3, 2004 at 6:00PM EST. All measures will be taken to ensure the integrety of data. Maintenance will take anytime from 3 to 6 hours to be completed and the server will be off line during the process.

... which means that from about 5p today until midnight (?) my website will be unavailable... which means that email to me won't go through... but posting to the message boards may continue if you don't rely on the links to them via my site... bookmark readings and a plain public road...

AP Handbook

no man is an island... unless he's made it out of others...and they're all there together getting... deranged... disarranged... the better to see you... my dear... i mean that's what this retreat always does to my sight... almost always... and this time, yes... so putting one's head back into the regular frame and smiling pleasantly for the camera turns problematic... as the face you make just when you wake up and find yrself in a suddenly and unexpected public condition...having to be yrself the one they all have known and loved... and generally taken for granted as we all should be... but there was this other place... you were just a little different... and still yrself other than who is normally you... so you think one more nap might do it...

so long, banned books week... see you next year...

His cunning speech appeals at once to his listeners' fears, aroused by the ghastly spectacle of violence, and to their greed. To every Roman citizen he gives 75 drachmas. The handout, absurd at such a moment of public crisis, is magically effective. The mob erupts and, as Antony had calculated, Rome is plunged into a cycle of violence that he can exploit for his own political ends.

Tomasz Salamun: cute, cute, cute. Anne Carson: shy, shy, shy. John Ashbery has beautiful blue eyes and smiles like a child. Jane Miller recited her poems and wore leather pants.

happy birthday to wallace stevens...
helen vendler... & others... On "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
The blackbird is the only element in nature which is aesthetically compatible with bleak light and bare limbs: he is, we may say, a certain kind of language, opposed to euphony...

just back from retreat... been gone since tuesday afternoon... and... well... tired as a deliberate man...

at A Glinting Web tonio takes some time to think about what poetry does... and what my poetry does... to him... this kind of reflection is valuable to me... and it's got me wondering if the best "criticism" doesn't often approach the condition of prose poetry... as this does... or maybe it's just good writing... metaphorical thinking... in any case, thanks very much...

aw shucks, mam... Amy says some really really nice things about me... and, in truth, i am a bit older than she is...

seems somebody here is pretending to be me... i'm flattered... i think

this is going to be another thin week here... more on it later...