I really love this Slate journal entry by a poet. The 4am musings are great. I know exactly what he means about "stewing in my own juices" instead of "turn[ing] on the lamp and read[ing]." I do the exact same thing when I can't get to sleep or if I am rudely woken up in the middle of the night. I am not sure what I hope to accomplish by yelling over and over again at the noise, person, or myself in my head. Maybe some sort of instant karma?

I also like the description of what a modern poet is:

• "Now, you might expect a poetic epiphany out of me at this point. Or failing that, to get drunk and/or make a fool of myself with an absurdly young woman. Isn't that what poets do? Not at all, at least not these days. Poets teach and drive Corollas with 150,000 miles on them and take their children to Suzuki violin lessons. If one of them succeeds in cornering you at a party, God forbid, he will probably tell you about his health plan and 401k. Even your accountant is more interesting, and presumably less neurotic and self-involved. This is not an entirely new phenomenon. Years and years ago the brilliant and iconoclastic old Bay Area poet and reprobate Kenneth Rexroth noted that "most poets are so square they have to walk around the block to turn over in bed.""
  

The idea that he puts forward, that poets are just like everyone else, is disterbing in some ways--I always like to think of writers, and poets esp. as being somewhat detached from modern life--but reassuring in others--even though I have a 8-5 job, and don't live in the bucolic wonder that I would like to I can still write poetry that means something, or is, at very least, good.