Today is shaping up to be a scorcher; and out on the street, workmen are backhoeing, paving, whipping around corners in their Bobcats, raising clouds of dust.

Last night, we went to another Sea Dogs game. Two Red Sox players were rehabbing, which was why we bought tickets; but the sultry night was reason enough. Summer is not releasing its grip.

I spent yesterday morning correcting Chestnut Ridge proofs, but today will mostly involve errands and collapsing in front of the fan with the boy. On Thursday he and I will head west--first, to dig my dad's potatoes, then onward to college move-in day. And then autumn will ascend, whether summer agrees or not.

I was pleased to see your list of angry poems. It seems that much resonant poetic anger arises from political conflict: the cold war, the world wars. I could have listed Milosz's poems about the German occupation of Poland, Whitman's Civil War angst, even this unattributed bit of 15th-century verse:

In every shire with jacks and sallets clean
Misrule does rise, and makes the neighbours war,
The weaker goes beneath, as oft is seen.

Of course poets also get angry about lovers, not to mention parents. None of you mentioned Plath's "Daddy," but that's at least as angry as some of these war poems are.