Snow falling on poetry students. It’s beautiful here now, white everywhere, and the way a landscape is so quiet on the morning after snow. The pictures are out my dorm room / monastic cell window.

Last night the poets partied, in a poet kind of way, appropriating a lounge, wickedly violating the “no open bottles in public spaces” rule, reading each other our work, careening from tear-streaming laughter to tears. Two of the Southerners sang “Folsom Prison Blues,” including the guitar licks, the lesbians (many of us, it turns out), played “Six Degrees of Separation” focused on Rachel Maddow, the red wine and craft-brewed beer flowed, and a wonderful “Oh body, oooooh baby!” poem from that morning’s workshop was performed with a full back-up chorus. Kim captured the entire extravaganza on video, which I may either share or suppress, depending. Check in the links to the right for the Picasa album.

This morning I’m being quiet, happily so, reading and thinking and preparing for my meeting at 1 with poet-in-residence Gerald Stern — he’s won every award, has a shelf full of books, and is kind and warm and funny as hell. Then I meet with Alicia to firm up my study plan for the next four months, then a faculty lecture by Anne Marie Macari on Harmony and Dissonance in Emily Dickinson. Then another long evening off, which I definitely need. All this being social and “on” all day is too much for my hermit-self.

Some friendly advice — when traveling, avoid whichever continent “continental breakfast” represents. Really. You just don’t want to go there.