Back in the Saddle
Or Falling Off the Wagon? Or some other Western metaphor for failure and trying.
It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.
By now, everyone knows that line from the Taylor Swift song “Anti-Hero" but in this case, if the lyric fits…
I have not posted anything here for quite some time. As I’ve said before, that is why I will never monetize this space. I’ve been reading a lot of your posts, learning from you, taking notes, finding new things to read, new music to check out. I’ve been working with my editors at Sundress to be sure that my fourth collection Unrivered is ready for layout/cover design. But I haven’t had much of anything to say, so I’ve let this platform be the thing that fell off my plate. So I’ll share today some things that have brought me joy/energized me/kept me writing over the past couple of months.
Asterales: A Journal of Arts & Letters
It was exciting and exhausting for Rachel Bunting and I to work through our first open submissions cycle as co-editors of our new journal, but the second issue arrived on April 20. We are so proud of the variety of writers and artists that are represented. I invite you to dip in — 5 poems, 2 essays, a very manageable read—and if you like what you see, share it! We are still new and want to grow our audience for our contributors the best we can. (And if you’re a writer or artist, subs for issue three open on May 1!)
Hundred Pitchers of Honey Reading Series
I cut the reading series back to four larger readings this year due to some upcoming travel and commitments to getting Asterales off the ground, but April’s Poetry Month reading was a reminder as to why I love to host this series. You can click on the link to the title above and watch the April reading (as well as all the previous readings) on YouTube anytime you need a little poetry fix. Next year, I hope to return to a more regular format, perhaps six readings a year.
30/30 for April
I haven’t felt very connected to my writing self, so I decided to do a 30/30 this year, loosely using the forms calendar provided by poets Taylor Byas and Seamus Fey. I’ve tried to stay open to whatever comes, to not force any sort of theme or “project”, to just go with whatever comes out. And it’s been working. So far, 22 days in, I have at least 5 pieces that I like, that I think are worth revising. (Yes, I revise. Obsessively. I know some poets who don’t, and that idea gives me the heebie-jeebies.) I won’t share any of the drafts here, as they are all in VERY rough places, but I will share some of the titles, my least favorite part of writing a poem.
It Doesn’t Have Feathers, Emily
Self-Portrait as Juliet with Insects
Self-Portrait as Virginia Woolf Thinking of Frost As She Walked into the Ouse
Sestina Where I Keep Asking Neil DeGrasse Tyson the Same Questions Over & Over
When the OED Fails, I Seek Definitions Elsewhere
Body, Don’t You Owe Me Something Good?
NOLA Poetry Festival/Recent Reading
I had the pleasure of attending the New Orleans Poetry Festival with friend and Aurora Writer’s Workshop creator Kristin LaTour. It was a festival that focused on creating community, on readings, discussions, and generative workshops that welcomed everyone into their orbit. It was only two days, but the sessions and time to actually talk to other poets made it feel warmer and more meaningful than big conferences like AWP. It was sunny, rejuvenating, and made me excited to write. Not usually how I feel after a conference. A lovely change of perspective.
I have been slowly reading the books I brought home, starting with Patrycja Humienik’s We Contain Landscapes. Its examination of belonging and the relationship between bodies and borders is rendered in lush language and plain truths. It’s worth a slow read, a re-read. It’s one of those books that you know you’ll pull off the shelf when you want to be inspired.
Here are just a few favorite quotes:
from the poem “Ecotones” - “O tenderness, I’m walking toward you./Why are you pulling away?”
from the poem “Self-Portrait as Helene Delmaire’s Painting of a Woman in a Bathtub” - “The condition of woman is to stay./The condition of woman is to grieve./Weeping, I refuse—”
from the “Good Friday” - “The busted rosary encircling my wrist/makes little silver thorns where it split./It’s not fasting I have a problem with // or even the temporary absence of music./I would like to fast from screens, lab tests,/diagnoses. From the judgment // I inherited. […]”
Lest you think I’m all poems and learning over here, I also devoured the latest Hunger Games installment Sunrise on the Reaping, which tells the backstory of one of my favorite characters from the original book, Hamish Abernathy. This is one of the only YA series I started with my students that still sends me looking for the next book. I was not disappointed. And I’ve been watching Mobland with Tom Hardy (I will pretty much watch anything with Tom Hardy) and been completely entertained by it, especially Pierce Brosnan’s scenery-chewing crime family patriarch and Helen Mirren as his scheming wife.
Not a Promise, but a Wish?
I’m not going to promise that I will be writing these regularly. I will be traveling in May and early June, so it certainly won’t happen then. But I will make a valiant effort to be more attentive to this platform. I guess I’ll see you when I see you.