* Poem Power: A single poem by...

* Poem Power: A single poem by writer E.E. Cummings prompted the Grand Rapids, Mich., school board to withdraw Monday night a high school literature textbook. “The poem was open to numerous interpretations, one of which was explicitly sexual,” said board member Susan Zimmerman, who voted to continue use of the text. Gayle Orange, who voted against the text, said “She Being Brand”--describing a man’s reaction to his first drive in a new car--had a “thinly veiled” double meaning.

* Old Friends: Former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater is sending Rep. Morris Udall, who is running in his last re-election campaign for the House seat he has held since 1961, a $500 check. The twist? Udall is a Democrat. Back home in Arizona, the Goldwaters and the Udalls have long been friends. “I’ve always supported you,” Goldwater wrote, “and I think it’s time this old Republican quit hiding behind the bush.”

* M.N. Phone Home: Ousted Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega has phoned home from a Miami jail. “Noriega was calling, I believe, several friends,” Panama’s police chief, Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassan, said Monday in Panama City. Herrera declined to name any of the people involved. “There is some purpose behind this,” he said. Noriega, ousted during the U.S. invasion in December, is awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges in Miami.

* 10 Points of Light: Barbara Bush had 10 candles burning Sunday night in the upstairs windows of the White House in support of an observance organized by the Mobilization Against AIDS. Though the group had wanted the First Lady to participate more directly, she chose not to. “She was asked to participate. That was her participation,” explained Anna Perez, the First Lady’s press secretary.