First: some news. It looks like "THE BOOK" is moving forward. I mean, I've heard from the publisher who is "keen to publish it" - but I'm sure there are lots of things that can happen between now and whenever an actual publication may happen. I got the email yesterday - after spending the morning working on a bunch of poems that had been in my "problem pile" (I solved a few problems too!) - and I gasped, nearly cried, then went to meet Lisa to see a film. (Charlie Bartlett. Fun. A great rendition of my favourite Cat Stevens song: "If you want to sing out, sing out." Steals shamelessly from the superior Rushmore.) Then last night, some wine to celebrate - though I feel like celebrating could be premature. Can you tell I'm a novice?

It seems unreal - it's been so long. When I start to feel like it's happening, I'll most likely update.

I had plans for getting out of town this week, but it hasn't happened. I may still go for a day or two over the weekend - I just can't decide. My brain has been a bit addled today, so I've been fiddling with collage materials, thinking about a poem and wandering around in the sunlight.

In the past few days I took the opportunity to go to the Corcoran and Phillips Galleries: both have large (and impressive) holdings of modern and contemporary art. Of the two, I found the Phillips collection more exciting: both had on special exhibitions that covered the breadth of the collections. I guess the Phillips partly appealed more because it was more geared to the modern and contemporary, while the Corcoran's exhibition placed modern works alongside nineteenth century pieces. But more than that, there were a large number of individual works I wanted to spend time with in the Phillips Collection - and a Rothko room, with a beautiful deep blue-green and burgundy canvas, and a red and orange canvas on perpendicular walls. A Robert Motherwell print called "Australia," in black and ochre. Photographs. So much stimulus!

The best part for me, though, was the fact that both collections had on display paintings by Joan Mitchell, who - almost solely through reproductions - has been one of my favourite painters for years now. I've seen these paintings in books (I always wanted to make A3 sized colour photocopies of a couple, to keep them close at hand...) and finally I got to sit in front of them.

Joan Mitchell's canvases are so huge. I like this photo on the cover of a monograph about her work: the physicality of the act of painting these canvases, and the fact that she didn't, like Jackson Pollack, lay them flat on the ground. The painting in this photo is her largest work either. She's such a wonderful colourist - and I feel that she makes real sense of the space of these large canvases. There is a lot of light and movement, and even while they remain abstract they suggest their subjects wonderfully even without the titles.

The weather has been lovely the last few days. Spring is here!

The next few days I have a lot of reading to do. At last: my first experience of Sir Walter Scott. I have to read Waverley for National Identity and the Nineteenth Century Novel. Also, after having just spent six weeks discussing various poets who are considered "modernist" in my Modern and Contemporary poetry class, I have to write a paper on four poems, using the poems to try to define modernism... Define modernism? Sure, easy as ABC. Next week is the UVA conference too, so I've got to get that paper in shape - I booked a hostel, and am hoping I've begged a ride. So -it's business as usual, and more so. With maybe a few poems thrown in as well. Fingers crossed for sanity.

Tomorrow I meet the Poet Laureate. Fingers crossed I don't swoon.