* New band joy: Darker My Love. They're described as "indie-psychedelic-rock"---conjures a mix of The Doors meets Grandaddy meets Screaming Trees. New album on August 5.

* The latest issue of Prarie Schooner is really good.

* Sending my friends with poetry manuscripts under consideration all my good wishes.

* Stories like this are why I like 60 Minutes so much. John Kanzius has developed a machine that may ultimately cure cancers. I am writing a poem about him and his research, in preliminary trials, involving gold nanoparticles that would be injected into a cancerous cell, heated up by radio waves (which so far do not harm the body), thus destroying the cells and leaving surrounding tissue unharmed. Let there be a cure.