Spring Break 2010 (3)

The days have passed very quickly. Beautiful spring weather, each day a little warmer, each day a little closer to spring and here it will be spring official in a few days. A nice thing to think. Not sure why but this winter seemed to be a strange and hard one. To find myself wearing lighter clothes and not be annoyed at thinking I have to go outside for something is really pleasurable. I mean, just the thought of going outside makes me happy. Soon it will be warm enough for real stoop sitting and that will be something. Something cold to drink, a good book, and I can see many good days ahead.

And these past few days have been good. Most of it has been spent revising poems. I really get caught up in that world. Last night, I found it was three in the morning and I was still going at it, still thinking one line, one word, one image over the other. Should the words be reversed, repeated? How much paring was right and how much spare could lead to too spare? And then the opportunity to put back, to think that the undoing could be redone. The joy here is that nothing is really ever lost. The experience of taking away and putting back makes the put back different. And when it gets taken away (again) it isn't the same removal. These steps revising poetry aren't the same steps repeated but steps further walked.

So with two days left of spring break I'm not going to start counting up (yet) what I feel like I've accomplished but the reading has been good, the translating good, the new poems have potential and the revising is something for which I've found a rhythm.

And I've been listening to some good music over the time, from Miles Davis and Celia Cruz to Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Jerry Jeff Walker. Throw in Eddie Palmieri and Falla and you've got a nice coming into spring playlist.

My brackets for the NCAA basketball may have been busted. Won it all last year and may finish out of the money this time around. Went against the grain a few too many times. Not over yet, but I can read. Ah, baseball must be nearing.

yesterday long, today short

A long blog yesterday on why no nook, no Kindle. Then a friend of mine said to me today that maybe I would learn to read differently. Maybe. And I can see that happening. And I can hold out for the iPad.

Or maybe I'm just a dinosaur who likes to write by hand and still thinks of his computer as being like a very nice typewriter (oh where is my olivetti lettera, the choice of so many writers?).

Today was a beautiful end of winter hint of spring day. I graded papers. I typed two poems (out of notebooks). I worked on Hinojosa translations (with a pencil). I watched Kentucky beat Florida and started thinking how next Sunday is selection Sunday and then the whole NCAA tournament begins (happiness). And baseball is coming. A wonderful time of year.

Baseball calls

A warmer day in February reminds me that, with pitchers and catchers reporting, baseball is not that far behind. Even now the newspapers have stories and the sports radio is more it than Olympics and even Tiger Woods. What are the priorities?

Last night a poetry/jazz program at the New School that had Robert Pinsky reading with drum, piano, bass players from the Jazz program. Pinsky made note that his point was to be part of a quartet and he did just that, the words as one fourth of intelligent and resonating sound. See photo at band of the land.tumblr.com