The love poem To Stacy Blair begins, of course, in Chicago, Illinois. Whatever else you might say about a piece supposed to be that intimate, I can only say that Stacy, who was a critical genius, remains the number one reader of my books, even now. There are top tier reviews I've received as substantial by other people; but nobody means it like Stacy does. And the many letters she wrote me did break my heart. After that, it's all best left to the imagination. Except to say that, in a way experiences can have of marking or not marking an individual, I was, indeed, marked by the time I spent in Chicago and the Midwest in the Aughts. The world I felt open up then was about boundlessness, and about dreams coming true. A poet who was truly on the road, was always who I wanted to be. When I walked around the Loop, or hung out in bars in Bucktown, it was not worth questioning anymore whether I was on the road. I was. Chicago and the Midwest will always mean the road to me. Maybe an uncommon association (nowhere near New York, where I also did plenty of road-time, or San Francisco, where I did not), but so what. And To Stacy Blair brings home to roost that most effectual time I spent on the road, with the most sense of hinges to the roads that are, or could be, the eternal ones. The choice of Wilco is an obvious one. So what. As a gag in Chicago, I took a replicant picture of the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot cover. Everyone's road-place is full of gags for them, and anything else that could make it memorable. So, the poem linked here is one I began in the late Aughts and never finished. In 2026, it's now finished, ready to be aired. The road goes on forever. I am trying to break your heart.
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