discussing clutter at work, i admit that i'm a pack rat but most of my shit consists of books and discs. asked what kind of books, i answer: poetry, essays, criticism, some fiction, movie guides and all manner of journals, zines and sundry fugitive publications. asked why poetry, i say poetry is language set to its limits, that poems are all at once music and movies and thought and emotion. i catch myself before i go on to lecture that humans are creatures of language and poetry is our summation and action. i shut up

and the silence is everywhere.