ART [This morning: editing a poetry manuscript. This afternoon: messing around with plaster and paint in a fresco workshop.] NOT ART [This morning: taking Tom's truck to the garage because it's making a horrible noise. This afternoon: shopping for a used clothes dryer because the one we have isn't making any noise at all.]

BEAUTY [Much as I hate to admit it: the glossy, green-gold, iridescent shells of Japanese beetles.] NOT BEAUTY [The appearance of a rose bush covered with Japanese beetles. The smell of rotting Japanese beetles.]

I read this morning that E. L. Doctorow has died. I feel sad, yet he lived a long a life and wrote many books, some of which were extremely interesting. What more could one hope for, as a writer, as a reader? [Well, of course one can always hope for more. Hope and despair are the food of art.]

Maybe my as-yet unwritten tome about the Plath-Sexton-Rich generation should also include an Updike-Roth-Doctorow section. Part 1 and Part 2. The women poets, the male novelists. Mothers and fathers. I have no idea how I would even begin to compose such a monster.

**

Tu Fu readers: Keep thinking about those 5 poems, and add some more more remarks if the spirit moves you. A member of the group tells me that she has only now acquired her book, so I'm going to refrain from commenting until she has a chance to do the reading.