Sharon Olds has a snail mail address, so I choose and mail a card to thank her. How much more rewarding that will be to receive, I realize, than another email amidst the spam. It also seems like the way a poet should receive mail. It is an honoring of the ceremony of words.
I read Vernor Vinge's book Rainbows End yesterday. It is about a famous poet who gets Alzheimer's and then is preserved in such a way that he is able to be brought back with faculties preserved. Not so much time has passed that he can't learn to fit back in, but his gift for poetry is gone. He now thinks in a very linear way. It was a good book to read as I try to re-adjust to life here. I slept a great deal yesterday. I am still living in two different worlds, navigating change, and feeling my way to new course.
Sharon Olds also wrote two new poems each day, shared her current struggle. It was fascinating to see where poems emerge, roost, and change.