I’m in a hotel tonight. I don’t tend to write well in hotels, but I’ll be plugging away at “Psalm and Lament” after dinner. If you see me on instant messenger, interrupt. I’ll be OK with it.

Preliminary findings: the repetition is useful. It’s usually the variation where the motion happens… but it can’t be propelled forward as forcefully without the repetitive stimulus.

I’m thinking that, if it’s allowable, I might look at Pinker’s The Langauge Instinct to speak to why repetition is so powerful. It’s fundamental to how we acquire language and I think that repetition in poetry speaks to that. Information repeated has a primal and incantatory power even when the repetition is subdued.

I’m burning the new Queens of the Stone Age for the trip out. Other motorists, if you see me in your rear view mirror, I’m not talking to myself. I’m rocking your face off.