I came back from AWP with a massive amount of poetry collections. When it comes to books, I have poor impulse control (understatement of the year) but there were a lot of poets at AWP that “I knew” either through previous interactions (MA, MFA, readings, etc.) or who “I met” through Twitter, FB and Binders, so again, I had to buy their books and get them signed. I had to.
My intentions after returning from AWP were good. I would finish out the spring semester and then bury myself in the lovely pile of books that I stacked on my dining room table. Guess what? It’s June 17th and the pile is still there. Untouched. The major reason for this literary neglect is that I thought I had a solid three weeks of reading time from the end of the spring term, May 11th, to June 4th when my son, Cameron, was supposed to be born.
Let me reiterate: his due date was June 4th. When did he show up? May 16th.
So, yeah.
Anyway. I’ve found that mornings, after Cam eats and goes back to sleep, are prime time for poem drafting/ revising/reading, so I am finally prepared to tackle that stack of books that is taunting me from across the room. I’ll be posting about each book (I’m hoping to average a book/chapbook a week) because I know that most of the time I come to poetry collections through recommendations from other poets.
Stay tuned.
Brianna Pike 