OK, there really isn't a study, and I included some bad poetry in my title, don't let that keep you from experiencing what you know is true: Poetry is cool.

The Tucson Poetry Festival kicked off last night, but the meat of the feast is this weekend, giving you plenty of time to take in some wonderful poets, like Samantha Barrow, Gina Franco, Buddy Wakefield and Andrea Gibson. I happen to be excited at the possibility of listening to Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation (right) and a professor of linguistics at the UA. Another is Brian Turner, a solider-poet who served in Iraq. Zepeda and Wakefield read tonight at the Tucson High School library. Schedule HERE.

From Turner:

HERE, BULLET
If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta's opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

Tom Zoellner, a sometimes-Tucsonan who has written the engaging Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock that Shaped the World, will be Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show tonight. We at The Range are, of course, seething with jealousy.

Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers, and winner of the PEN award for nonfiction, has high praise for Uranium:

Who knew that a rock could be so endlessly fascinating? In this engaging geo-thriller, Tom Zoellner leads us through uranium's dark and colorful past and points us to its possibly terrifying future. Put on your haz-mat suit and prepare yourself for a wild and ultimately sobering ride.

Here's a Q&A with Zoellner that ran in TW a few weeks back.