Gathering Forces

96º ~ heading up to 99º but looks like Friday - Monday should be down around "normal" = 90º - 92º ~ most of the state is listed as in "extreme drought" so the small pop-up thunderstorms we've been seeing offer little hope of changing our course


Next Tuesday, C. reports back to school, and next Thursday, I do as well.  There are gathering forces all around the desk of the Kangaroo.  We are trying to take care of our left-over to-do lists and trying to soak up these last few days of calm.  I've already been back on campus several days in the past week or two so this isn't a clean-cut transition.

from Wikimedia Commons

I've always felt that this time is much like New Year's Eve for others; it's a time when I reflect on my goals for the upcoming year and time when I huddle in and sleep a little extra.  I have to say that this year looks to be quite topsy-turvy with lots of changes on the horizon.  There will be some major changes at school and some new adventures in poetry.  I'll be updating you on those poetry-related adventures just as soon as I can (nope, not book related at all).  I bring these things up now to say that I will most likely have to re-evaluate what time I have for the blog.  I'm thinking that my new goal will be to post twice a week.  I'll most likely have to give up posting my draft process notes as time for writing will shrink in the days to come.  I've already whittled away at my blog feed and created a "favorites" folder to try and prioritize my time in the blogosphere as reader.  All of this makes me sad, but until the world rewards poetry as it rewards corporate raiders (or until I win the lottery) something has to give.

But not quite yet...

Today, I've worked on submissions, but I confess that lately, I've felt like I'm slugging through slowly drying cement when trying to focus on the business side of poetry.  I'd rather be writing or revising.  (Which leads me to think of those bumper stickers that say something like "I'd rather be surfing" or some such.  Imagine if there were one for writing.  Some turned heads for sure!)

Today's submissions were sparked by both a rejection and an acceptance this week.  All of the work I'm currently sending out is from the fever series, so it's been quite interesting to see what sticks where and what needs to go back to the drawing board.  I have to say that the rejection was quite wonderful and praised the project as a whole, so that was nice.  Still, I'm wondering if the narrative arc will prevent some of the individual poems from finding their own homes.  Time will tell.

The acceptance was fantabulistic!  It's from a journal I've been submitting to for several years, a journal I read from cover to cover every time it comes out.  I first sent in a set of five fever poems in June and the editors requested a larger sample in July, so I sent in five more.  They just accepted two poems from the second batch I sent in.  Wahoooooooo!

Both of these events were on my mind this morning as I revised two poems that had been among those rejected this past week and gathered together a new submission packet.  I study and re-study the poems that "make it" and try to figure out how to shore up the ones that didn't.  I'm often surprised at the fact that there is more pruning to be done.  I'm not drastically changing the poems, just clipping away a little extraneous language here and there.

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Many thanks to those of you who have offered support and friendship all summer long.  I'm looking forward to seeing what this new year brings!