Apparently, fate decided to deliver a venomous bite to yesterday's early-morning post about struggling to write because what really happened during the rest of yesterday is that all my bumbling bumbled itself together and I wrote a first draft that made me happy. As I've already mentioned, I've been searching for a way to impersonate immigrant western Pennsylvania voices without resorting to imitation accents. One of those voices is a character I've borrowed from a friend's family history: an Italian-immigrant miner who loved Dante. The idea of such a character has revolved in my thoughts ever since she told me the story. So finally, yesterday, I figured out what I needed to do: I needed to copy out a section of Dante in the Italian and then write alongside it . . . not a translation but a reaction to the visual impact of the Italian and the muscle memory of the meter under my fingers. And it worked! It really did work! I wrote a poem that I think will be, in some future draft, a real piece; and I am so pleased because I love this character dearly and I want to give him a life.