Confession Tuesday

Overall, life is good. The kids are fine, Tim’s fine. But I think I’m a little bored, or maybe I’m experiencing ennui. Or is this just a garden variety rut? I find myself waiting for something new to happen. Sounds silly and trite, especially since I’m not afraid to make things happen. Yet I feel as if I’m spinning my wheels until the next big thing comes along. Does this every happen to you?

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We’re at the midpoint of NaPoWriMo. Woo hoo! I am down a poem, unfortunately. Not an envious spot to be in. While I tend to complain a lot about the month, I really enjoy it. April is such a fine month to start new poems while life is in bloom around us. Whether you read or write poetry, how lucky we are to enjoy the written word like this from the inside out.

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Writing daily poems is less stressful this year than I thought it would be. The stress comes from trying to keep up with everything else in my life. I dream of a day when I can support my family off of my poetic endeavors. Oh, to dream a little dream.

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I’m watching American Masters on PBS. Tonight, they're profiling Walt Whitman, so my inspiration is derived from his through his eyes. Tim is watching it with me. He’s such a good husband. (Had to switch over as the Red Sox take the lead against the Cleveland Indians in the top of the ninth.)

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Found out yesterday that we’re getting a tax refund! We turned over our info two weeks ago to our accountant, and just got the word today about our status. We are the king and queen of cutting it close--we’re just thankful that we’re not paying.

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It’s colder in Atlanta than it is in Boston. Go figure!

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Share your confessions and Carolee and I will stop in and say hello.

Comments

evie said…
hey, january!

this "confession tuesday" thing is interesting . . . my guess is that your feeling of waiting is tied to the downtime before your book is released. that will, i hope, feel like a "big thing" when the time finally rolls around! : )

to respond to the question you asked at my blog (this is the tricky part of deleting the drafts daily -- the comments disappear as well): i don't think expansion is much on the table for my drafts. the 31-word poems are precisely that. they only expand in the sense of accumulating, taking on resonance by their association with the other poems in the series. by the same token, none of the longer poems (from the sonnet on out) began as shorter poems during this month or previously. the one exception, i suppose, is the draft (about my father) i posted explicitly as "part I" of what i know has to be a longer poem. i'm definitely planning to return to that and post (or simply write, if it doesn't happen during april) the rest of what i need for a complete draft.

for me, these are drafts insofar as i will be tweaking word choice, playing with the visual elements, improving the images, tightening up the forms, and so forth, until each poem feels really done. but that's not likely to mean adding a lot of lines or putting new ideas into the mix. now you've got me thinking about it, though... have there been any drafts you thought would be best served by opening them out into larger meditations??

thanks for the question and for reading along with me. i'm enjoying your pieces every day, whether or not i post comments. sorry to leave such a long response in your comments!
susan said…
Reading you keeps me both grounded and inspired.Thanks for being here.
Goodnight, Mom said…
Hey! does that mean you are coming to visit???!
January said…
KDB, I'm 67% sure we're coming in May. More later.
January said…
Evie, I think the book has something to do with my attitude. *sigh*

I have really enjoyed reading your work on a regular basis. Can't wait to see what happens with the expanded piece.

There are a few poems I would consider expanding. I'll have to go back and locate which ones. But I think I take the easy way out by writing short poems instead of longer ones.

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