"Allen Grossman says that art is about its subject in the same way that a cat indoors is about the house. If the poems are “about” me, I hope there’s room enough in me for language to make its necessary rounds; I also hope it finds its way outside once in a while."

(Graham Foust in an interview at http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/gfoust.htm)

Without any intention of being 'cute' (perish the thought!) I am thinking seriously about the effect two kittens have on what & how I'm currently writing.

Cat rhythms are intriguing. The shifting phases during the day of curiosity, activity and dozing. The way they move around a house & establish 'places' (my chair ... L's bed ... a window ledge ...) - creating zones of comfort & warmth (if I remember rightly there's those passages in William Wharton's The Scumbler where he seeks ideal places to write). The way a cat transforms a room it's in - finds fascination in and new uses for things dulled by routine (a bath plug chain! crumpled paper! his sock!). How it imposes itself on you, nibbles your pen - you're distracted from your thinking - only to then be absorbed again with this purring going on as an accompaniment.

I gag at volumes of Cat Poetry - you know the kind of exploitative dross these volumes represent. However ... Christopher Smart & his cat Jeffrey ... Robert Duncan had cats ... I remember O'Hara being filmed with a cat or two near his typewriter ... James Shuyler adopted one ... .

Is there some connection? (Whereas ... poets & their dogs? Aren't dogs for novelists - those long walks in which to plan out plots and chapters?).

Or is this just total nonsense? Probably.