For the last week, I've been thinking about poetry and politics in mid-nineteenth century Russia.  Writers then faced a situation similar to today in the United States, at least in one respect:  critics kept prodding them to demonstrate their commitment to revolutionary social change.  Good politics did not make a poem good, but it was for many readers a sine qua non.

Fall has arrived in Seattle.  The first cold rain began on Friday.  I've been holed up at home, avoiding the wet as long as possible.  While going through boxes in my office, I came across a book that I must have bought in Moscow in 1990, though I can't remember doing so:  Nikolai Nekrasov's Selected Works.