Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

Strange things happen.  A little over a week ago, our guest poet at The Frost Place was Abbie Kiefer, a delightful person whom I had never met in person, but whose work really spoke to me. I had the pleasure of introducing her at the start of the reading, and I had read several of her poems in order to get a sense of who she is. One of the poems I read, and one that I quoted from in my introduction, was her poem, "Assistance."  So how cool is it that yesterday's poem of the day on The Slowdown was that exact poem?  Here is the audio , with a nice commentary by poet/ podcast host Maggie Smith.  And I spent a few minutes reading through my almost-manuscript, and reordered the sections and the poems in the sections. I'm still not sure what's going on in the narrative arc, what story I am trying to tell with these poems. It is so much easier to arrange 25 poems into a chapbook; a full collection is more than 45 poems. I am going to try to have an even 50.  I think ...

Yesterday was quite busy, but in a slow, really good way. Okay, there's the paradox for the day. Church was good, and Fr. Rory's homily gave me a lot to think about. He upended how I (and I suspect, most of us) have been reading a certain passage in Matthew. Fair enough: I've got some mental homework to do. And the writing class this weekend was really good-- I'm not sure if I have poem drafts or flash fiction bits, or what I have, but it was fun to accept the prompt challenges, to see how syntax was and can be working in my writing, and to work on what is likely some hybrid of prose/poetry. Whether those pieces become something later, only time will tell, but there's some work on paper, and that's what I needed to do.  The reading at The Frost Place was lovely; Sarah Audsley was our guest poet, and the open mic was good, too. It's the last on-site reading of the season, because the construction is imminent. The series will continue at Iron Furnace Brewing, ...

Yesterday was delightful. I spent hours talking and writing and just being me . Not me, wife. Not me, Memere. Not me, mom, teacher, taxpayer, customer. Just sitting talking with other like-minded people about writing, and doing some new work, and seeing how the things work. Then, when class was over, I invited Holly over for pool time. That was good, too-- the water was warm enough, and we spent 90 minutes in the pool. Far from being waterlogged, I felt rested, finally. I needed good words and a good soak. (I got a little sunburned, too, but that goes with the territory.) Today is going to be a little more busy. I'll start with church (I am the lector, so I can't skip out), then home for a quick breakfast and back online for day two of my class. When class is done at 2pm, I'll be jetting over to Franconia for our Sundays in the Barn with Bob reading. The guest poet this week is my friend Sarah Audsley, so I'm excited about that.  Then, I'll jet home after, because H...

Saturday! And the day began with G scaring off a very impertinent bear. Seriously, we do not put out kitchen trash, and the bird feeders are empty. Nosing about looking for things to snack on from our bins is a waste of time. But still, there it was (as I'm told, since I was still asleep), on the side step. Then it went around front, and was on the front steps. Valiant husband and trusty dog scared it off. It bolted through the lilac hedge that separates our yard from the neighbor's-- imagine their surprise, with a full-grown black bear popping out into their driveway, full tilt. Yikes.  We live in a rural area, but it's hard sometimes to fathom that there are deer that cross our back yard, that there's bobcats up on the hillside behind our house, and yes, this damned nuisance bear that traverses our yards every night. During the day, there's traffic, dog-walkers, loud noises from the road and sidewalk construction, emergency vehicles-- all the busy-ness of in-town ...

Ah, google docs. What a mess. I have an editor who is trying to share her suggestions with me about a poem they are publishing-- and since she's put it in a google doc, and my regular email is not a google one, I can't access the file. I think we've got it figured out. She'll have to send it to my alternate email (a google one).  What a mess. We were all sold a real bill of goods when they said computers were going to make life simpler. Look at the mess in NJ over the glitch that enrolled 6K+ people in the voting rolls who didn't even ask to be put there. And let's get all sticky with the messes that computer issues have caused with autopay, bank errors, and now...AI jumping the fence that the creators have put around it, and it just goes ahead and does what it wants. And yes, I'm aware that I'm awarding sentience to a non-living entity, but this stuff is wildly scary.  It's bad enough that companies are shifting to AI to do human jobs-- what the hel...

It's Thursday, and that means bills, groceries, house chores...and add in soccer later today. I'm tired, woke up tired, and I wish I could just nap/cruise through the day. Not gonna happen. I'll rally. Just... it's taking some time. I can't help thinking about the start of the new school year, and to be honest, it's making me uneasy. I'm not in a good mental space yet to think about all of that: build the google classrooms, do the GCN modules (which we have not been sent yet, thankfully), and the whole getting up and getting going thing. Hell, I don't want to wear shoes yet.  The pool must be leaking; the water level keeps dropping, and we have not been in it. I'm glad I bought a new one for next year, but I still want to get in again this year-- but if we keep adding water, it stays too cold. Conundrum, eh?  And I'm trying to go without coffee today. My stomach has been a little extra-sensitive again, and I have no clue what's up, so I'm...