Monthly Hello / March
New poems, Denver Quarterly, Words like Blades
The days and weeks after AWP are always some of my most exhausted, and most anxious of the year. Although I loved seeing many friends and meeting writers, it is, frankly, not when I am at my best. I always spend the weeks after the conference playing catchup across my day job, my teaching business, and my editorial work, and I know that many writers who juggle multiple responsibilities feel the same way. It is hard for me to miss even a day without the surface tension breaking, causing wobble, spillover (a problem I recognize as non-sustainable). My immune system, and my calendar, which are both compromised to begin with, are in shambles, so I felt like laying that out on the table in case you are feeling the same way.
On the other hand, the conference always relights a little fire in me. This time, I saw a small vision of what my life can look like post-PhD, which, I think involves engaging more here, particularly with the micro review series I started last year. I thought I would also try to do a monthly round-up of things I want to share. I wish I could do more, and maybe I will do, eventually, but for now, here’s a few things I’ve been getting up to:
I had two poems from my new manuscript in Poetry Magazine, which is always a delight (click to read on your browser/listen to me read them). The first is called “Expression,” and it is, surprising nobody, about coughing. The second, “Vers Libre,” is the opener to the second manuscript, and it is very much an ars poetica, and invocation for this next era of my writing life. An editor once told me that my verse was “constipated,” and metaphorical implications aside, I tend agree, that loosening on the page is necessary to a liberatory poetic practice:
I was interviewed by Sean Singer, and was happy to publish this new poem on his blog, “The Sharpener.” I have been writing a lot of poems about writing poems, which I know is well-trod territory, but the creative act has begun to take on new resonances for me. I feel like the more I learn, the less I know, and I am trying to use poems to interrogate the philosophical basics of understanding, being understood.
Denver Quarterly, for which I serve as associate editor, is currently open for poetry and prose submissions through March 31. What should you submit? We tend to skew toward the experimental, in both form and content, and because that can have so many meanings, I always tell writers to show us what you can do. We might be the journal for the poem that takes that formal risk that you haven’t been able to place anywhere else. We also love strong, surprising images, as well as nuanced approacs to the lyric.
Words Like Blades this month will feature Jennifer Militello, Carey Salerno, & Bianca Stone. Click here to register for free to get the Zoom link. It it going to be a wonderful event, and as always, three guests will win copies of the poets’ books.
More soon,
Jane