#30--Random Info/New Work yadda

Hi there. Happy National Poetry Month!

So for those of you (ahem, Martha) who have been checking in and finding me woefully absent, I'm really going to try to update at least once a week. I could come up with lots of excuses, but ultimately I think I'm just terribly, terribly undisciplined.

The good news is that poems have started clearing their throats and making themselves known again!

Why this should surprise me, I don't know. It's always like this: I don't write for months and months and then I write furiously. I've talked about this phenomenon with friends, in interviews, etc...so I know it exists. But somehow I do forget. I do this with allergy season, too. Go figure.

I was talking with a new friend yesterday--a scholar--who has this same thing happen. He's working on a critical introduction to his book and each time he goes back to it, he has to relearn the stuff, struggle with whether he knows how to write critically, etc... It's a very knuckleheaded way of engaging work, we surmised. But we do it. So odd. Proof that people are pretty weird.

For those of you interested in the new work that I'm into, it's featured on the connotation press website which you can find by clicking that link. They put up three of my poems, an interview, and me reading the poems, which was a whole ordeal not worthy of recounting. Yipes! I'm excited. I don't think I've ever had poems (well, with the exception of having one animated on Born a loooong time ago), online. And I know I've certainly never been the featured poet, which is what I am on connotationpress.com. It's especially nice to be on the site this month (National Poetry Month) with poets I like and admire. Wahoo!

I'd like to officially announce that I am going to be one of those poets who uses their publicity shot from twenty years ago for ever and ever and ever. Just so you know. I know full well I don't look like that photo they've got posted on ConnotationPress.com. I don't think I ever did. But whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Harrumph.

Anyway, I just wanted to poke my head in and say, "Hi!" I'm in Indiana still. The weather is beginning to nicen up (I know nicen isn't a word, but the hell with it). There's also a coffee shop here now! And it's a fairly nice one. By nice I mean it's great by small town standards, by city standards not-so-much. But it'll do. And it's just around the corner from my place. So that's good.

Okay, that's it from me. Since it is National Poetry Month, do me a favor, if you're not a poet (or perhaps especially if you're a poet!) and read a book of poems. Maurice Manning and Terrance Hayes both have new ones out this month. Those would be a good place to start, I'd say.

Peace and Blessings,
C