It’s a dark, rainy morning in the Midwest. Really, this is the kind of day that would be better spent at home, under a blanket, watching a movie. Instead I’m sitting here in my classroom listening to my students click away on their keyboards.
_______________________________________________________________________
I would like to extend my congratulations to Pamela Johnson Parker and poet and friend of mine. Sunday she received notification that she’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
_______________________________________________________________________
Food for thought:
Poetry exists to break through to below the level of reason where the angels and monsters that the amenities keep in the cellar may come out to dance, to rove and roar, growling and singing, to bring life back to the enclosed rooms where too often we are only “the living and partly the living.”
May Sarton
___________________________________________________________________
I spent the better part of four hours last night compiling a list of journals to send my work out to. AWP left me feeling energized and cautiously optimistic. It’s a jungle out there, but the only way to get anywhere is to suck it up and jump in. I know that a few months from now when the rejections start rolling in, my cautious optimism will be replaced with full blown despair, but in the meantime I’m trying to focus on the positive.
A friend gave me a compliment today while we were commiserating about the woes of getting your work “out there.” He said, ” Writing my friend, I’m thinking about your poetry, and actually, I miss it. It always made me feel good, reading it, not like so much muck poets tend to shoot for these days. Yours is like lotus poetry, blooming white and clean even if it’s rooted in mud.”
Thanks, Sam. I hope someone else thinks so too.
Brianna Pike 