A hot night, and a hot morning, but somehow I did manage to get some sleep last night and am now feeling somewhat less like a double-exposed photograph. So far, so good with the Sassy Groundhog war; that horrible coyote urine seems to be daunting her, and she hasn't eaten anything for the past few days. Now the cucumber is setting fruit, I've picked a few cherry tomatoes, and we ate our first artichoke last night, along with a green bean and rice salad, grilled flank steak, and homemade watermelon granita that was completely delightful. Next year maybe I'll try growing a melon myself.

On a walk the other day, I cadged a book from a free pile--Frances Prose's Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. I've read Prose's essays before but not her fiction, and thus far this one is not bad. It's a good hot-summer-day read, in any case--a nice balance for the Inferno, which I'm still copying out and which is not at all suitable for torrid weather.

I revised two of the drafts I wrote at the Frost Place and sent them out to see what other folks might think. So I'm beginning to step back in to writing, but slowly, as I don't want to distract myself from everything else I need to get done. That's pretty much where I am with poetry right now: I have to keep it under control because otherwise I'll do nothing else but write books. It's a logorrhea problem, maybe.

FYI, Chestnut Ridge is available for purchase, and I am slowly trying to set up readings, etc. I do have a couple of workshops forthcoming--a weekend retreat in midcoast Maine, probably in November, and a revision session in Dover, New Hampshire, next March. I may have a teaching gig in Florida duing the winter, and I'm trying to figure out something for NYC/Jersey City, and I've got steady dates for Monson Arts all through the school year. In other words, obligations are starting to crowd, so now's the time to snag me if you've got ideas.