In western Pennsylvania poetry project news, I discovered yesterday that, of all the paintings in his collection, Henry Clay Frick's favorite was The Polish Rider, which according to his great-granddaughter's biography "was acquired in 1910 on the thirtieth anniversary of Frick's making his first million." She speculates that the rider's "war hammer strongly resembles a miner's pick, and the cliff in the background recalls the bluff outcroppings characteristic of the [coke-producing] landscape." I don't know what I think about this speculation, but it does happen to be my favorite painting in his collection too.

In the past couple of days I've finished two more poems in the series, after a long, long span of writing nothing (that is, nothing other than pages and pages of non-poetry) . This is a relief and an encouragement because I really do not want to lose ground with the project. Now a print of The Polish Rider is lying on my desk, and please, please, Rembrandt, let me find a way to write about it.