On today's schedule: a quick visit to the seashore for lunch with a Frost Place friend and then back to the forestlands to drive a kid to a soccer game. I've been working hard on the next chapter in The Conversation, which deals with sound elements in Joe Bolton's "In Memory of the Boys of Dexter, Kentucky." I feel as if I've made some sort of enormous discovery about the way in which sound, sight, and sense accrue in the course of a sonnet, but I expect there are a thousand scholars slavering in the corner, ready to burst my balloon. (O, mixed metaphor, how I love thee.) In the meantime, Paul and I are inventing a fairy tale that stars our household animals (Once upon a time there were three little children, and their names were Princess Lulu, Princess Anna, and Horrible . . . ), and I have been working out the details of a two-day writing workshop I plan to lead this fall at the Barred Owl Retreat in Leicester, Massachusetts. I'm calling it “'Fitted to the Matter': Turning to Verse, Turning to Prose." Suggested readings are Richard III and My Antonia. Doesn't that sound like a delightful combination? I am so excited.

Also, String Field Theory is playing on Saturday evening at the annual Strawberry Festival at Stutzmans' Farm. Come hang out with the mosquitoes and me.