Tuesday, June 30, 2009

On the Road (almost)

If all goes well, I'll be hitting the road for Asheville at about 8 am. Cannot wait! I want to shake off all the dust from the work remodel, wear shorts and unsensible shoes, and get over-stimulated.

Last semester was an experience unlike anything for me. Sure, I'd done some times in a residency program, did the TA thing, and hated almost every minute of it. But this! I could work within my own schedule, read poets and books I'd never heard of or thought about and had a great time. There were a few weeks there where I was pulling 40+ hour weeks and trying to do 25 hours of reading and writing for my next packet just seemed like it was too much--but I did it.

Now that I know what to expect from both the residency period and the semester after, I'm excited to see what happens. My poems have gotten just a little stranger this spring, they surprise me with what they want to do and how they want to do it. My biggest challenge now is not finding time to write, or things to write about, but to just simply get the eff out of my own way.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Bad Bad Blogger

I keep thinking to myself--maybe this week I'll post something. Then I get sucked into work, or new poems, or Facebook and nothing happens. I'm not even really gardening this year--mainly weeding and maintaining what I've got growing already.

BUT--I do have some news. My chapbook won the Robin Becker Contest in the category for poets without a chapbook already. You can read more here. The release date is February 15, 2009. I am careening back and forth between numb and excited. It's been a crazy day and a half since I got word.