San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford’s Facebook status messages are queries for the world, not just for his friends. In a special Rumpus bricolage, we are pleased to present Ariane Conrad’s take on the brilliant Slow Poetry of Morford’s Wall.

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You’d think Stanley Kunitz, near 70 and hobbling through “Touch Me” would have slid off my 19 year old self. But it was the only poem that stuck, from a night of literary luminaries.

15 years later, returning—not the first time since—and reassured again by the continuum: desire, desire. Tonight it’s the motor of the cat’s purring, drummers sounding from the arts center, and the thump of my hips against a circling hoop. Some tomorrow again there will be a beloved, a darling, do you remember—I’m sure of it. And in three decades time, desire still.

The Emperor of Scent, by Chandler Burr. Luscious writing from Burr, and an outstanding lead in Luca Turin as he’s caught in the intrigues of the perfume industry and scientific community. A nonfiction thriller.

Van Jones is an award-winning activist, bestselling author, orator, and political advisor. I helped him birth his first book, The Green Collar Economy (Harper One, 2008). …more