brief notes from amherst

- Finally, at Juniper. Left Pittsburgh at 5:30 a.m. last Sunday, drove through a rainy sunrise listening to Patrick Wolf's new album, "The Bachelor." My experience here thus far is proving immensely refreshing - provocative & productive. Today I walked into town & bought a small Cavafy & Gertrude Stein's "Tender Hooks." Amherst Books has a fantastic used section. Also bought, on instinct, "Inside the Blood Factory" by Diane Wakoski, a poet whom I've never heard of.

- Hello solitude, my sweet.

- I've been thinking a lot about Nan Goldin again, the poetry in her photography, the intersection of private acts & the catching movement of art. Particularly thinking about her photographs of couples & of those where her subjects are isolated & naked.

The obviously sensual or erotic is too easily gazed at as mere spectacle, body as artifact, alien. There's a subtlety to desire. When I wait through my initial responses (arousal, an experience of beauty) I find something uncomfortable or frightening...and, OH - ! Rilke, perhaps this is what you meant... ...

I've been accepted to the Juniper Summer Writing Institute!

Couldn't be more excited. Taking a little trip afterward to Boston to see dear Thomas F Johnston & tumble around the favorite haunts. Crossing my fingers that I'll be able to get into a workshop with Mark Doty, who has been one of my favorite poets since high school. Actually, I'm quite star-struck around him, having seen him at AWP & mumbled something incoherent about his book "My Alexandria."

update, 6/5: will have workshop with Doty. !!!