So art imitates life, or life imitates art, or whatever. I guess either theory works, depending on your vision.

But what about art imitating art? Does that, by definition, exclude life and subsequently, reality, all together? Not always. Take the visceral journey into the part of life that allows reality to be defined by an assorted compilation of art genres colliding, commingling and getting to know each other better. What I'm talking about is poetry, the frontier of the linguistically mad scientist, finding its muse in 2-D and 3-D art and resulting in a massive explosion of creativity. I mean, really, what better inspiration for art than art itself?

Some people at the Milwaukee Art Museum decided that the worlds of art and poetry play nicely together and have created the Art of Poetry/The Poetry of Art Contest as a portal for the inspired minds of this city to travel fluidly between the two. The guidelines are pretty basic: Each participant should submit no more than three original poems based on a specific piece of art from the museum's collection. All winning poems will be posted on display near the piece of art that acted as inspiration. All submissions should be postmarked by March 1, 2005. For rules and details, contact Fran Serlin at (414) 224-3840.

While you're lost in poetics, keep your eyes open for the 2005 Midwest Poetry Slam League to grace our city next month. Milwaukee has had a competitive team of free-styling word nerds since 2003, and plans to host a verbal bout of rhythmical merit here on Feb. 21. Venue and details to come, promise.

In the meantime, get naked. That is to say, for whatever reason, Three has dubbed its weekly Thursday night event as "Naked Thursday" with host Rik Fade. Jan. 6 is extra special because it's the first Thursday of 2005. If, like me, you've been takin' her easy since the year's end, then you've had nearly a week of recuperation. A wise choice. But by Thursday, we should be recharged and ready to discover what guilty pleasures 2005 has to offer.

Tomorrow night's DJs-making-your-ass-shake extravaganza is brought to you by one of Madison's staple underground house and breaks DJs, D'Angelo, and by Milwaukee's own DJ Lactose (aka Justin Grall, co-owner of Niche Style & Sound). What these DJs posses is the ability to create a synthesis of sound abstract enough to be original and intriguing for the electro-devoted, but also fun and accessible for the rest of us who cringe at things like multi-word genre labels. No matter what your degree of sonic savvy-ness, this should be a good time. There's an opening set by Burlington's Minus 2, and as always, there's no cover.