Happy New Year’s Eve at 0700 from the Bar de la Poste, Semur-en-Auxios, Burgundy, France. The Bar de la Poste is the only coffee house-brasserie open at 0700 mornings in this section of Burgundy and here I am. But, the brasserie has a quite acceptable cafe au lait and croissant with great American and French blues playing not loudly  and tuned to an internet station without advertisements.

I have not composed a word of fiction for six-seven weeks. I needn’t throw myself from the barstool. I chat via Skype once a week with a buddy, Robert Olen Butler, who is somewhere along 1/8th to 1/4th of the way to completing one of his best novels of his twenty or so works of fiction. Robert also has not put a single word to IPad for the same six-seven weeks.

His wife, Kelly Iver, recently published three poems in Boston Review. Poetry is a personal art; One is either besotted with the poet or indifferent. I am besotted with William Butler Yeats, Boris Pasternak, Anthony Hecht, and E.J. Laino. No other poet, American or not, comes to mind. But Kelly is Robert Olen Butler’s wife. What does one say if a friend’s poetry is puerile, self-referential, devoid of wisdom or deep knowledge?

Her poetry is not my cup of tea. She is also young (‘er’ than I). We’ll see how her poetry develops.