Recurring thought these past few days: The key poetry-wise is the basic stuff we revisit again and again, making it contemporary. Zukofsky's horse. What is the basic stuff? Good question. Being or its absence? the relationship between language and the rest of the world? Maybe this is just a figure I've absorbed.

Other days my impulse is quite the opposite, that the key is to try to destroy poetry, to write something that "isn't" poetry and to get people to accept it as if it is.

Wait, is that the opposite?

In other news, a few weeks ago I joked with a friend that the Leafs should bring back Stumpy. I didn't realize I had such influence.