An old friend comes to visit, a writer, another native Californian, an iconoclast, a fellow formalist, a devotee to the goddess of rhyme. We haven’t spoken in over a year, but he finds himself in Los Angeles, as I do. We talk politics – I tell him about my intention to work for the Democrats until the election happens, and he shares with me that he spent a week canvassing in Ohio during the primary.

We talk poetry. I show him some of the stuff I’ve written this past year – one extremely formal, one loose and semi-formal (like a winter dance), one simple and prosaic. The semi-formal one, about revenge, is one I realize I wrote for him and his sensibility even when he wasn’t present. He’s one of my ideal readers. He’s always had a good ear for my work, one of the best, but I am moved, as always, by how he feels the emotion of the writing.

I am proud of these poems. I’m moving towards something with them. And he senses, more than anyone I’ve shown the informal poetry to, the void in the heart of them when they are rhymeless. He knows what that means to me.

Being in LA right now must be the right choice, if things like this are going to happen. I vow, foolishly, to find somewhere in this city to read my poetry while I’m here.