Mary Burger, with whom I’m reading at 21 Grand on Sunday evening, is a personal favorite & has been ever since I first ran into her work at Naropa nine years ago. In theory, she was a student, since she took my workshop there. But reading her poetry even then reminded me of Robert Duncan’s comments about first coming upon Helen Adam & Michael McClure – that there are some people who aren’t doing what everybody else is, but who do their own thing with such intensity & skill that you simply have to stand back & give it room. Mary Burger’s writing has just that kind of edge.

 

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This week my blog had its 60,000^th hit. When I first thought about doing this last August in Nova Scotia, I was thinking 30 hits a day would be good.

 

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I took Jim Behrle’s “which poetry blogger are you most like?” quiz and it told me I was Ron Silliman. Whew!

 

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I’m going to be in the San Francisco area for the next two weeks and the only computer I’m taking is my Palm Pilot (which I have pointedly not configured for email access). I might blog from a public access PC at an Oakland library, or some such, but I won’t promise it. In the meantime, you be good. If you’re in Northern California, I hope to see you at the gallery 21 Grand on Sunday, July 13.

 

While I’m gone, let me point you to Ed Lu’s blog – he is literally the first blogger from outer space.

 

I’ll be back in the faux forest suburbs of Philadelphia’s Main Line on July 27. Bye for now.