Some of you may have noticed that today’s newsletter is a little late, and that’s because I needed some time to report this one out. I’ve been angry and heartbroken since the video of Tyre Nichols’s murder was released on Friday, and over the weekend, I talked to both my kids about what happened. The conversation was hard for many reasons, but as I’ve written here before (and in my book), it’s crucial that we talk to kids about racism and oppression and everything that happens in the world because of it.

For a long time, I’ve found titles to be one of the most mysterious parts of the poetry process. It’s easy to craft a title that feels like a throwaway or simply redundant. Some of the titles I’ve invented work like labels; they don’t actually add new elements. In my recent study of the topic in preparation for the online class I’m facilitating on March 5th, I’ve started thinking about the different roles titles can fulfill.

In Why I Walk I argued for taking long seemingly pointless walks, sometimes up to twenty miles a day. To learn. That is something I been doing most of my life, mostly on weekends, but over the last two years I’ve been more consistent, walking about twelve miles a day, and doing twenty mile walks a few times a month. I have gotten a lot of questions about tips I have learned from doing that.

The deal memo is an essential document for venture capitalists when considering an investment deal. Typically, after hearing a pitch, a VC will put together a memo to document their thought process around the deal. This document is vital for several reasons: It provides an opportunity for the VC to think critically about the investment and put their thoughts down in a living document. It helps the firm understand that partner's perspective on the deal and can also serve as a template for all investments.

You write great music. You have a good pace of releasing new music. You are doing your promo pitch just in time to increase your shots of getting into Spotify’s editorial playlists. You’re submitting your music to independent playlisters. Yet nothing happens. A few thousand streams, mainly connected with your promo efforts. No retention in monthly listeners, only a handful of followers and organic playlist adds. And then, at some point, magic happens.