Journal Bits March 8 - 14

• March 8 - After assessing the potential of what I have so far towards my working manuscript, I'm about five off my time lines. Counld be worse.
• I guess I'm going to do the 30 days- 30 poems challenge for April again. I'm an idiot. I like to think of them as 30 drafts. Last year I had about five keepers out of the work.
• March 9 - After reading Susan Rich's poem What to Make of Such Beauty from her upcoming book The Alchemist's Kitchen my book want list just grew.
• When you are young / before death has any real grip on you / leaving an empty no-deposit-no-return
• March 11 - there is a phantom disorder / hiding within the order of us all...  there is a dark side to out toast / it is not what is buttered with sunshine
• The shelf has bowed under the its weight / heavy in insignifance
• March 12 - Is it time again for daylight savings? / A bouquet of bunk. Show me / the savings. Like all capatalism it's just shifting ledger columns / hocus pocus
• March 13 - After the minute and hour hands collide at midnight / after the house listens to itself for groans and settlements in the walls

Wordle - Composit Thoughts #1

Wordle - Composit Thoughts #1: ""

Friday Briefs

While I'm not an iPhone person, those who are might want to check out the app named Poem Flow where you can read or experience a poem per day.

~0~

Ran across this Margaret Atwood quote and thought how true...

"A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason."

Russian poetry takes translation prizes

The poetry prize went to Elena Fanailova's The Russian Version, translated by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler and published by Ugly Duckling Presse.

Fanailova is a Russian poet, doctor and radio reporter whose poems brood on bloody, wrenching changes of the last 30 years in Russian history.

I'm Giddy

I know it's Spring Traning and not regular season, but my San Francisco Giants are 7-1 with their 5 to 1 win over the Cubs. Kudos to Pablo Sandoval for his grand slam hommer!

Baseball is so poetic!

but fix the typos...

The poet Susan Rich will be wearing her editor’s hat as she guest editing for an upcoming issue of Crab Creek Review. In a blog post today she shared three easy to follow rules when submitting work to keep you ahead of the pack.

I actually found #2 humorous although I realize she is serious about the advice. Do people really tell the editor that they better not change a word, but they can fix typos as required? I suppose they do, but while her wisdom seems like common sense, I suppose these days common sense is kind of like an oxymoron.



Crab Creek Review Winter/Spring 1999

Confession Tuesday

Well another Tuesday has arrived so it’s time to do the Confession thing again.

Let me get comfortable here before I begin… or is it better to be uncomfortable while confessing. I’ll leave that to the theologians.

It really hasn’t been a that interesting of a week. I’ve been working on a manuscript that is part of one of my goals for the year. I confess that it I’m trying to be calm and focused about it, but it’s not always easy.  I know I still have a lot to do but I’ve taken inventory of my work and it is coming along. I confess that I get conflicted about how I feel  concerning the progress vs. what still needs to be done.

This week I’ve been working on a poem that is maybe up to about draft 15 or 16 and I confess that I believe in the poem but I think it may be needing to tell me what it wants to say and I’m just not listening. I confess that I can be stubborn that way.

I got a haircut during this past week and I admit I look pretty good for a change. I’ve stopped wearing the dog tags.

Last night I was sitting at the chiropractors awaiting my appointment and I confess I was looking in a reflection of myself in a glass. It wasn’t like a vanity sort of thing, but I was looking at my natural facial expression. I’m not a person who especially smiles a lot. When I was younger I didn’t like my smile and I pretty much kept a serious face. Maybe I’ve done this so long my face has frozen (like I was constantly warned) because I don’t feel I have a natural smile. I can smile, I’m not really hard to get to laugh, but I confess that I am not comfortable smiling and at the same time I am becoming uncomfortable at not smiling naturally. I confess this seems really screwed up to me.

I confess I’ve found another poet’s book I want. Surprise, surprise! 

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