As it slowly dawns on both body and brain that I am gloriously without official work for some small space of time, a sense of mania towards reading through stacks of books and journals rushes in. This morning, the latest issue of Poetry.

I know this journal does not need little old me to help spread its readership, but this month, I’ve found two poems in particular that resonate: Nicky Beer’s “Prairie Octopus, Awake” and Michael Rutherglen’s “Lives of the Watchmakers.” The following line drew me to Beer’s poem: “Owls swallow vowels in stilled trees.” ~Such luscious sounds that melt on the tongue. And for Rutherglen, aside from the eternal subject matter of time and mortality, I admire his use of rhyme without seeming heavy-handed. Poetry is now publishing the majority of each issue online, so please check out the links for the entire poems.

My poem “Nothing is haunted” just came out in the new edition of West Branch, and I’m thrilled to have it chosen for today’s poem on Verse Daily.

Also, today is the official beginning of my Holiday Break! Woo Hoo! Thanking the calendar gods, we have almost a full month off this year. I’m happy for so many reasons about this. For one thing, this means lots and lots of time for reading and hopefully even some writing. Since July, I’ve been fairly diligent about working out 4 times a week. Now, I plan to create a writing routine in the same way. No matter what is going on…there will be writing time when I must tune out everything else.

A Blessing
by James Wright

James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose.

First to the happy news. Grist, a new annual journal from the U of Tennessee Knoxville, accepted the poem “For the One Pulled North.” My thanks to the editors.

Now, I have to admit that November got the better of me. I can already feel the New Year’s Resolutions beginning to form regarding posting to this blog. I am grateful to those of you who still frequent the link, and I hope you’ll hang in there.

I’ve been going through the mood swings that accompany completing a manuscript; however, I wasn’t aware this was happening until a good friend pointed it out a few weeks ago. Working with Blood Almanac was a long and drawn out affair, perhaps because there was only a loosely defined core to the book. I wrote whatever poems arrived in whatever space I created for them. Three-quarters of the book was written in the super-charged/condensed air of graduate school. Glacial Elegies is a different animal all together. It took about six months of flopping about after BA came out, but eventually, I discovered that I did have a central idea controlling the most successful poems I was writing. Then, I began to write to that theme more purposefully. In the end, the manuscript feels more whole than the first. And, as most of you know, I’ve begun sending the manuscript out, but I don’t have a good feel for whether this different approach will lead to success.

Over the last month, I’ve been feeling distant from writing, not even wanting to pick up my pen/journal even when I did have an hour or two to do so. I began to think I might have lost it…whatever that elusive “it” is. Finally, after an email confession on my part, aforementioned good friend pointed out that I was probably just feeling drained from “finishing” this second book. Most likely, that’s exactly what is happening. As frequent readers will know, the individual poems are making their way into journals, and that’s the first step for the book itself, but it is also reaffirming to me that the poems I make mean something to someone somewhere.

To end on a positive note, there is a certain clarity in the sunlight today, slanting through the remaining leaves, falling crisp across my desk, my papers, my fingers.

My poem “Honor Thy” is up on Linebreak.org. One of the coolest things about this online journal is that the editors solicit others to read the poems. So, go the the site and hear Maureen Alsop read my poem. It’s so interesting to hear another person’s interpretation of the words on the page. If you like what you read/hear, submit your work or volunteer to read!

A little more good news on the publishing front. The editors of Meridian have accepted two poems for the next issue. This will be my second appearance in Meridian, and they also published a review of Blood Almanac. If you’ve never checked them out, this is one of my favorite journals…a good balance of work and beautifully produced.

As I’ve said before, it’s hard to stay motivated about writing during the height of the semester, but moments like these prove that all of the work from the summer matters in the end.

Good news for a fellow Arkansas MFA and good friend.

Crab Orchard Review and Southern Illinois University Press are pleased to announce the selection of last year’s competition. Our final judge, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, selected William Notter’s HOLDING EVERYTHING DOWN as the winner of the 2008 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. HOLDING EVERYTHING DOWN will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in October 2009.

Congratulations Bill!

Just got the new edition of Poets & Writers and am regretting a schedule that precludes reading it from cover to cover as usual. I did read two of the shorter articles tonight. One is an overview of the Cider Press/Stacey Lynn Brown events. The article presents more information from the point of view of the press, along with Brown’s points. Also, I read the profile of Paul Guest, a poet whose work I admire and whose blog I read fairly regularly. If you aren’t familiar with his work, check it out. I can’t wait to read the profile of Toni Morrison. Also of interest to me is Mike Chasar’s piece on being asked to write poems for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Lots to look forward too.

Also in the mail: a copy of Carolyn Guinzio’s new book Quarry.

I have been prioritizing my time lately, and when I sit down to poetry, I’ve been reading a lot rather than posting here. I’ve also devoted time to continue sending out poems to magazines and the book to publishers. Some good news: I’ll have poems appearing in the new issues of Hunger Mountain and New South, as well as one set to appear in Linebreak.