An odd experience last night: in what was perhaps a first for me, I couldn’t make any real evaluation of the work of Noah Eli Gordon and Joshua Marie Wilkinson because I was laughing too much. Which is not to say they’re poetry was comical—I don’t think it was (again, I’m hazy…)—but their reading was a somewhat delirious double act that was—hilarious. At 7.15 I was still wondering if I was really going to leave the house (the couch was awfully comfortable, and I haven’t had a night in, cooking, for ever so many nights…) but I’m glad I got myself out the door. If I’m still a little knocked sideways by the whirlwind that the reading seemed to be. That they’d driven all day from Boston seemed fitting. There was an underlying manic energy that I was quite enamored with.

Spoke to them both afterwards—Noah more than Joshua. Found myself babbling about Milton—(he’s taking over my life, or at least my consciousness, at the moment). I tried to buy one of his books—A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow—because David Shapiro had written very nice things that appeared on the back cover, and David Shapiro (an underrated, under-known poet) has interested me ever since, way back in 1998, I messed around with setting a poem of his to music. Anyway, I would have bought a book, but then I suddenly found that I had lost my ATM card. Brilliant move. So, I went home and rang the bank, sympathising with the customer service man who had to ask every single customer if they were “satisfied.” Oh! Those were the days.

I realised, while searching for all my account details, that at any given time I’m less likely to known where my chequebook is than the draft of a new poem. Anyone else have that problem?

Having written all about Milton this morning, I’ve moved on to thinking about Anne Carson. I’m planning, now, to write on her for my final paper for Gewanter. A project that will, I know, make me happy.

I had a friend who, for a while, was thinking about writing (at least a section of) her thesis on oranges and happiness in 20th century poetry. I’m so sad that this project didn’t end up being her focus. I was hunting through my books, finding oranges. I’ll never read a poem about or including oranges the same way again.

No poetry reading tonight. Unless you count Milton. The class does always involve us reading sections of his work aloud.

Returned a stash of books to the library today, am replacing them with the few Anne Carson’s I didn’t bring with me when I moved here last year, and Lorca’s Selected Poems. Lorca. More happiness. Coffee, the scent of oranges and good poems. That, apparently, is all I need.