68 poems in the main notebook since 8/17

I’ve found recently that I prefer to write a first draft of a poem on paper (currently with a fountain pen for extra pretension). I’m easing back into the idea of being an actual writer again. I wrote a lot during the long dark period that I don’t think of myself as having been capable of writing. It’s weird. I keep stumbling upon poems and remember writing them then. This is what depression can do, I guess.

Anyway, getting better now. I’ve sent out a total of 5 poems to various slush piles since August. I’ve written 68 in my main poetry notebook alone (there are more scribbled here and there, like the handful in my journal, not included in the count). It doesn’t seem like much.

Today, my fountain pen needed a new cartridge. I’m writing with a Lamy Saffari at the moment (a cheap but servicable pen). There’s a triumph in the first cartridge replacement. I don’t know how much of it was any good, but I wrote enough to use that much ink since, whenever it was I bought that pen (maybe February?).

Today, I formally declined an interview with a poetry program (not a university based one, no degree involved). It would have culminated in a book contract. Their focus was for writers of color. They take only a handful of students/yr. I couldn’t take the step towards taking a spot. It didn’t feel right. I’d rather wade through this myself. That and the thought of picking 3 poems to read made me panic a little. Not that I don’t have 3 polished poems, but crap what do you pick?

I’ve started reading the Andrea Gibson book I bought after the Write Bloody reading the other day (I bought 6 Write Bloody books after that reading, so I guess they met their aim if their aim was to sell their books). 😉 Maybe those books are the “poetry class” my work needs right now.

It’s a new month. This means it’s time to send out a few more of my beasties out into the world’s slush piles. My goal is 3 per month. Last month, I sent out 4.

It’s also NaPoMo (National Poetry Month). So, I’d like to write a poem per day this month. I’ve written one thus far. It was about colonization. Nice and cheery. I think it was influenced by one of the poems I vaguely considered reading in the interview I backed out of (the poem in question was about a man I knew who was kidnapped and taken to a B.I.A. boarding school as a child where he was forbidden from speaking his language etc.). Maybe tomorrow I’ll write something lighter.  That might be nice.