Yesterday was the first day in Baltimore that I have felt more than 75% awake. I spent the morning helping the housecleaners at my housesit and grocery shopping. I told the clerk I had just moved here, and she, thankfully, did not tell me not to go out at night. The housecleaners, however did. That makes three people in twenty-four hours in Baltimore who have told me not to go out at night.

Afterwards I wandered up Charles and St. Paul Streets, from about 25th to 34th, to see what there was to see. After leaving a land of so many cathedrals, it’s amusing to find an equal density of cathedrals here in Baltimore. One Catholic country to another. I wandered past a Civil War memorial and the BMA, which is Free For All, but did not go in – I was too excited about getting to campus for the first time. I walked through some grassy parkland that’s south of the Homewood campus, and entered campus for the first time through the East Gate.

To my right was a big circle of grass called “The Beach,” with girls sunbathing, bottoms up. I want, so badly, to call them “coeds.” In front of me was the Eisenhower Library. I went in. I slumped down by the periodicals section and began my intensive program of cramming on contemporary poetry. I read the current and back issues of Poetry and American Poetry Review. Lots of good stuff. Some quotes I’ll put up.