First all-day revision workshop ever at the Teaching Conference. I think it went well; I think the teachers were happy. My brain, however, seems to have liquified. Presumably it will re-congeal before long, but I'm just warning you.

Sorry about these cryptic posts. The only time I can get to the library to write to you is after I've finished putting on the 8-hour show. You full-time teachers, who stomp these vaudeville boards every day, can start laughing now.

Another day of no rain . . . so far. Fresh strawberries are in season. I eat them every morning at Polly's Pancake Parlor, which is a real place, though the name makes it sound like a business establishment in Richard Scarry's Busytown, the sort run by rabbits and serving only pickles. This morning I drove around in the fog with Sam Cooke's rendition of "Find Yourself Another Fool" blasting from my inadequate stereo. Meanwhile, the boys are taking advantage of my absence to watch Quentin Tarantino movies every night.

I ought to talk about today's poem and prompt but I am so tired that I can't remember its title.

Gave my reading last night. According to Baron, it was more like an exorcism. I hope that's a good thing.

Today I saw a woodpecker forking insects into a hole full of screeching babies. All day long the sun shone on Frost's mountain. Believe it or not, people are warm and non-moldy. No mice have been sighted in the barn. My writing prompt poem was Rilke's "The Dwarf's Song." My prompt was "Write a poem about a body that isn't yours." I used the Stephen Mitchell translation, which might be somewhere on the Internet. You could look for it if you're interested, or I could email it to you.

No Internet at the Frost Place yet, but we do have a large groundhog on the back stoop.

The teachers are all fabulous, as usual; and I can now reveal this year's featured poem: Robert Frost's, "Range-Finding." Read it and make yourself queasy.

Now I must go buy a bar of soap and decide what to read tonight. Perhaps the bear will attend. Let's hope he buys a book.

I leave today for the Frost Place and will be home again on Thursday. In the meantime, the boys will bake my bread and feed my chickens and water my tomatoes. They will not, I am almost certain, sweep my kitchen floor or dig any clean dishtowels out of the drawers. Possibly they will empty the trash. Possibly not.

Last year I found a box in the middle of Frost's living room that contained a DSL modem. This leads me to believe that the house may now have Internet access. Or perhaps I will stumble over that same box-with-modem in the middle of the living room again. Change is slow at the Frost Place. I'm sure that Frost himself would scowl at the idea of DSL. He would vote for bad-smelling oil lamps and a mouse infestation, which of course are far more suitable to the grumpy old faux-farmer lifestyle. Nonetheless, he might be able to adapt to the Internet: it's not entirely impossible to imagine him leaving a snotty, highhanded comment on someone else's poetry blog.

Today's weather is damp, dark, and moldy--usual Teaching Conference fare. The forecast hints that we may have summer later in the week, but I am not convinced. Packing for the Frost Place is difficult, and I always bring the wrong clothes.

Anyway, as usual, I will do my best to write to you this week . . . and I do hope I'll finally catch a glimpse of the Frost Place bear.

I finished rereading Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, and all I can say is that if you ever find yourself in need of a book that (1) doesn't oblige you to overthink your connection to it or to anything else and (2) doesn't make you feel wicked for wasting your earthly hours on crap mystery novels, read this one.

Next on the recovery-literature docket: Trollope's Orley Farm . . . so long as all the pages don't start falling out, which is a definite possibility. Here's hoping that when I get back from the Frost Place I'll have rediscovered my ambitions and be able to return to the Pennsylvania project.

Now, as comic relief, I offer you the headline of an advertisement in the New York Review of Books:

"Discover How to Write about Anything"

Apparently, by way of these very expensive recorded lectures I can learn "how the unique styles and characteristics of fiction, essay, poetry, drama, and autobiography can inform [my] voice." Also, the professor assures me "that writing should always feel like an enjoyable process of self-discovery."

I tell you: there ought to be a law against perky defamations of the artistic endeavor. Maybe we could have warning labels, like on cigarette packages. Warning: Looking at this painting may make you feel worse than you did before you arrived the museum. Warning: Writing a good poem will in all likelihood leave you empty and slightly ill. Warning: Do not believe you will conquer the elusive, insurmountable aggravations of photographic printing. Warning: You'll never be as great a novelist as Dickens.

I am hoping for a quiet spell of rain today. I need to do some transplanting, and the rain will help the little plants take root in their new homes. This has been a year of spotty germination: even after a second planting, none of my golden beets have sprouted, and the red beet leaves are frail. Carrots and parsley have also been reluctant germinators, and insects keep biting off the heads of the cucumber plants. But my grapevines are loaded with tiny grapes, something that has never happened before. Wild strawberries are gleaming among the iris, and roses--white, pale pink, magenta--are running riot. The heavy-headed peonies sag into the grass, and now mock-orange blossoms, with their sweet, dense scent, are beginning to open beneath my study window.

I thought of reprinting one of my poems here today, but suddenly I am tired of all my published work. I have a stack of new poems to send out to journals, yet I can't seem to garner the necessary business-like energy to sort through them, organize them into batches, choose recipients, pen self-confident cover notes. So here the poems sit. Perhaps the rainy day will soothe them.

Instead of giving you a poem, I'll give you this strange little prose piece, which appeared in South Loop Review, vol. 12 (2010). As you might notice, it bears no resemblance to my usual prose style. I'm not even quite sure what to call this genre.

Word Problem

Dawn Potter

Part 1

Friend A seduces Friend B.

Friend A moves into a house with Friend B and an Unknown, who turns out to be Roommate X plus Friend C.

Roommate X and Friend C undergo a rocky romance.

Meanwhile, Friend C attaches herself to Friend A. Now they are Best Friends; they spend all night talking to each other on the telephone.

Meanwhile, Friend A and Friend B undergo a rocky romance.

Friend A is demanding. Friend B is cold.

Friend B and Friend C aren’t really friends yet, until they stay up all night drinking pina coladas.

Now Friend C gives Friend B a Camus novel, and they are lovers, briefly.

Friend A cries. Roommate X cries.

Friend C cries, sleeps with Friend A, and returns to Roommate X.

Friend B cries, which no one has ever seen him do before.

The school year ends, and everyone disappears.

Part 2

Friend C rents an apartment with Roommate Y.

Roommate Y gets pregnant and crazy and moves out, leaving a large cat behind.

Friend B, at loose ends, moves in.

Friend B and Friend C assume joint custody of the cat. Eventually they get married.

Friend A is the best man. Friends A, B, and C pretend to think this is funny.

The large cat dies.

Twenty-five years go by, in their usual fast-slow way.

Part 3

Friend B is unsatisfied, bored, withdrawn, and drunk.

Friend C is unsatisfied, emotional, needy, and prone to exaggeration.

Otherwise, they are happy together, and so are Child 1 and Child 2.

Meanwhile, five hundred miles to the south, Friend A is drunk. Nonetheless, he snags new Friend D.

Friend D is a fine acquisition. Child 1 and Child 2 could not agree more.

Part 4

Friend B visits Friend A and Friend D, while Friend C stays home with Child 1 and Child 2 and deals with various household emergencies unrelated to this tale.

Friend D goes to the movies.

Friend A and Friend B go to a motel.

Friend D is philosophical. Friend C is not.

Part 5

Repeat Part 3, infinitely.

Questions

Will Friend A convince Friend C that any future sexual assignations with her husband would be like “going out with a fishing buddy”?

Will Friend B continue to envision Friend C as bossy and controlling?

Will Friend B continue to envision Friend A as bossy and controlling?

Will Friend A and Friend C continue to see Friend B as cool, silent, and impossible to fathom?

Will Friend A hold Friend C’s hand while they listen to Tammy Wynette records?

Will Friend D finally lose his temper and start screaming?

Will Friend B ever be forthright about what he really wants?

Will Friend C ever stop believing that sex equals love?

Will Friend A ever stop smoking?

Will Child 1 and Child 2 ever figure out what’s going on?

Answers

no yes yes yes yes maybe no no no yes

Extra Credit

If Friend C is the only chronicler, until Child 2 gets a clue;

and Friend C is the only female, until Child 1 gets a girlfriend;

and Friend A has the special power of making his lovers stay up all night;

and Friend D has the special power of not drinking at bars;

and Friend B is the princess;

Then who feels worst and/or best at the end of it all?