So much poetry month

Love poem, lust poem, breakup poem, prayer poem, curse poem, contemplating-mortality-while-looking-at-a-dead-animal poem, nature-sure-is-beautiful poem, nature-sure-is-weird poem, language-is-weird poem, art-inspires-me poem, what’s-the-point-of-poetry poem, I-miss-my-home poem, escape poem, world’s-going-to-hell poem in its environmental and political varieties, people-are-shitty poem, I-have-hope-anyway poem, my-body’s-failing-me poem, struggling-against-despair poem, hey-I’m-not-dead-yet poem, apology poem, not-sorry poem, I-fear-for-my-children poem, grief poem (a category much bigger than elegy).

Can you tell I’m neck-deep in the Shenandoah submission pile? I drafted the above list one tired afternoon when I needed to stop reading (for everybody’s sake). They’re all poetry flavors I’m encountering often, sometimes in brilliant versions, other times in ways that don’t work for me, although they would for other occasions and venues. The only type of poem that’s become a hard sell lately because of its recurrence in my pool is contemplating-mortality-while-looking-at-a-dead-animal, but, hell, I’ve written that poem and admired others’ take on it. Poetry rules are made to be broken.

Distant reading has its uses–I need to pull back and contemplate the balance of an issue before I finalize the list, not wanting to publish ALL grief poems, for instance–but it’s also a sign I need a break before I can re-engage with poetry’s insistent close-upness. April bursts at the poetry seams, for me, between student conferences and grading and submissions, not to mention reading poems on social media because ’tis the season. I can fall into the weary state where nothing surprises. I start to wonder if the zillion of us (including me) holding our poems in the air saying “pick this one” represents just too much of a good thing.

The better frame of mind I struggle to cultivate: a zillion people working on poems IS a good thing, in spite or because of war, an awe-inspiring wave of political protest, and the fucking Supreme Court. It’s certainly joyous to accept work for publication, while painful to reject good stuff (choosing 18 poems out of 500 batches of 5 each=tough math, although I’m grateful to Siew Hii for doing 1/5 of the screening). But I don’t have to eat and breathe poems, not right now when the dogwood is blooming. The kitten wants petting. Poems keep.

I’ve missed writing this blog, which I see I haven’t updated for a month, and now you know why. Aside from teaching and editing, there was application-reading (400 pages worth from the semifinalist pile alone) and hours of interviewing in the mix. Like reading for Shenandoah, hiring is happy-sad: so many people doing great work, yet we can only recommend one to the dean. But academic deadlines are easing for me now. I’m not teaching during W&L’s short, intense May term, so after I finish sifting these submissions, my school commitments decrease substantially.

My summer-work requires thinking not just critically but creatively again in the ways I recommended at a recent MLA Zoom write-in event. (That talk went well! I’ll let you know when it’s free to download.) I don’t yet have the juice, unlike the natural world greening around me, or the parts of it that don’t get chewed to nubs by our resident groundhog. My body says: first rest, take walks, read silly things for pleasure, look at paintings, watch Netflix, bring this overheated machine’s temperature down. But it’s hard to downshift, as always. There are a lot of tabs open in my brain. I’m restlessly analyzing profusions and weighing future obligations, not settling into concentration. I’ll get there, I always have, but yeesh.

Among the fifty tasks I need to start soon: prepping for the late May conference Poetry by the Sea, at which I’m on two panels. Many friends will be there, which is glorious. I also have an official release date for my next poetry collection, Mycocosmic: March 4th, 2025! Which brings me back around to holding up another fistful of poems and asking busy people to pay attention, which is harder and harder for indie writers, as my religious reading of the upbeat but honest Pine State Publicity newsletter confirms. In short, my excitement is threaded through with anxiety. I would love suggestions on which reading venues/ conferences/ festivals to apply to as I build my list and gird my loins for all that difficult asking. Maybe avoiding publicity stress will help me get some actual writing done.