Final Words from Maine

Tonight was the lobster/steak dinner and show at the Maine Media Workshop and it did not disappoint. We saw work from a number of the artists, from the older (mid-career folks) and their documentary and multi-media work, to the younger artists, black and white photographers, screen writers, etc. The food was good fun (how can you ignore a freshly steamed Maine lobster? Fresh corn? Baked potatoes? A good white wine?). The media work we saw was, for the most part, very impressive. It was clear that these folks had worked hard over the last two weeks and I felt kind of privileged to see so much good work (okay, there was some stuff that wasn't much, but not from the youth program folks, who were quite talented). Jesse had five prints in the slide show from his group (I recognized three, thought maybe a fourth) and look forward to seeing his portfolio tomorrow. We learned tonight that his teacher, a very good photographer, Isabel Foley, lives only about ten blocks from us in Brooklyn, and I hope that means that he'll be able to get some good feedback from time to time on what he is doing.

On the whole, I think a really successful trip. Jesse did some great work, met some good people, and I think learned a lot. One of the things that Katherine and I both noticed from the dinner time and the presentation of work was that it reminded us of places like the VCCA and Byrdcliffe; in other words, it was a real artist colony even as it had this strong teaching element to it. But there was kind of mutual respect in conversation about work (even between the older artists and the younger) that impressed me. If Jesse decides he wants to return next year, I say yes! Compared to SOCAPA, well, there is no comparison so I won't bother.

For the cottage couple, I finished a new poetry manuscript Invisible Man (at least a good draft that is now an intense working period away from being done), got some good work done on Hinojosa, and also thought a lot about my teaching for the fall. Katherine did some beautiful work in water color and oil pastel and pencil, and gave her a sense of some good new ways of working. So art prospered at the sea side cottage, as did the Cannonball, who got to roam the grounds, go to the beach, play endless games of stick.

We leave tomorrow for a meandering trip down to Framingham, MA where we stay for the night before getting back to Brooklyn. Then we have some days for Katherine to be in the studio, for me to do some revision on Celia Cruz (more later), and work with Jesse on footage for his documentary of the Poet in New York tour. A lot to do and a lot more to come. But two weeks that were really quite special. And have us all moving forward.

Saludos,

Mark

Some week, lots of translating, poetry and the filming of "Gwen Hirsch"

Katherine and Jesse were away on Fire Island with some friends so I had the week to work. It seemed like a lot of time was spent waking up at 3 and 4 and 5 so I could call people in Spain re: the Hinojosa project, which is now going well (I think) though there is still some issue of permissions re: the use of the Spanish, though everyone in Spain (the heirs included) assures me this should be no problem as I think they really like the idea of his reputacion as a poet having some kind of resurrection. Of particular help has been the wonderful Alfonso Sanchez. Tin House has accepted three of the translations for their next issue along with a small essay by me which deals with the erasure of Hinojosa as a poet.

My goal these days is to seriously work on two poems of my own and two translations every day, which may not sound like a lot but it really is a lot of work. My goal is to finish typing all the poems from the June 2007-February 2008 moleskin and then using our two weeks in Maine (end of July) to do some serious revision on those as well as on the Hinojosa project. Then we come back to Brooklyn for a bit, off to New Hampshire to Dick Merryman's and then down to Virginia for a few days at Nimrod. Then we hit the Staunton Music Festival where Dennis Tobenski's song cycle for seven of my poems premieres. In between all this, I've got to plan out two new courses for the fall. Yikes.

Have I spelled this out before? Maybe. That would mean reading my own blog!

Meanwhile, while Jesse was out on Fire Island, he made this great film parody, Gwen Hirsch which really gets at the whole of the ALL experience. It really is a hoot but it also gets at how seriously awful and misleading the whole of ALL and the NYU Child Study Center were about what was supposed to be a ground-breaking program but became nothing more than a disaster. What they did to the kids (and the parents) was practically criminal and I warn anyone against having anything to do with them. Or at least go in with your eyes wide open and know that what I've heard from other folks in the field, those guys have the reputation of being full of themselves and have no regard for the kids they pretend to care about.

On a different note, a poem from Celia Cruz:

the evolution of complexity
for Alan MacGowan

why we love
is the first question
if there’s a second one
I think this day
is too beautiful to ask it
the trees are blossoming
white, pink, yellow
crocus and daffodil
the air just smells good
despite the city
despite the world and
its newspaper news
I’m not really interested
in answers
I just like the question
why we love
which invites the
inevitable response
how could we not
okay, there’s the second question
impossible to resist
like going for a walk
on a day like today
so many people smiling
as though paying attention
to the smallest things
is everything

Saludos!

Mark

a work day

Worked on new poems, short, long, felt pretty good. These are ones I first wrote in November so there is a lot of snow and cold imagery/atmosphere, very interesting. But that's the way I like to work--first draft gets written, then sits for months and then I come back and see if it's worth continuing.

Also worked some on the Hinojosa poems. The guy is good and he's also tough--words like redil (sheep-fold), fosfenos (phosphenes), barlovento (windward). He also is a cross between a surrealist (and the world of the unconscious) and a modernist (a kind of Pound-like precision).

Another poem from Celia Cruz:

good luck prayer

horn wind
siren wind
bleating bleating
beauty wind
this night silence
broken by darkness
then pieced together
threaded woven
you are charmed by the thought
this will bring us closer
this will take on
what a kiss takes on
what a whisper

almost on our knees
eyes closed
almost
in time to pray and worry
to the left
one tree
to its left
where winter ends
a field

Hot Sunday

Lots of time spent the last few days spent working on Jesse's room, cleaning it out, organizing so much of it. He completely re-did the walls, filled with lots of his artwork (some very large and impressive paintings, as well as some very interesting smaller ones. There are portraits, self-portraits, abstract work, a giant piece that is really something, life-size white on black of of a woman in motion). He hopes to get these on a web-site soon. It will be something to see.

For me, the real work of the summer, I think, begins tomorrow. I'm waiting on an inter-library loan on the Hinojosa but have already started on the twenty or so I already have. Plus work on the two new manuscripts should move forward, one is the random poems of the last year and the other is the poems for Mark Statman: An Anti-Memoir. As these become revised, I'll start posting.

But here is something from Celia Cruz

from the dead

an inconclusive silence
the tyranny of uncertainty
we live with the knowledge
of our knowledgelessness
and so we place flowers and keepsakes and stones
on graves, at candles, at trees
thin clichés take over thought:
the horseless rider
the sword and outworn sheath
belief and hope
that on the wind will come these voices
which call us to light, a beckoning
the termination of suffering into void
thin
the pause in cycles
the dead waiting in Homeric clusters
for their chance
to drink from Lethe
into forgetfulness
and toward their chosen new life
I wish them not to be reborn
I wish for better than that
some final party
at the end of grief
Hey, says a soul you know
have a drink.
Someone else tells a joke
an old one you’ve always known
and it’s funnier than ever
laughter fills us
an old joke and laughing for eternity
sometimes life was like this
but enough?
over here
another old friend
shows photos
remember this?
you do
an album full
of everything you ever did
that made you happy

the future

I thought Hillary's speech today was terrific, moving, poignant, and a call to rally and get rid of the clowns who have been in power not just for seven years but, as she noted, for the better part of four decades. So I'm fifty now and it matters to me to think about time in that way.

For those of you who missed Lorca's birthday a few days ago, drink some brandy (he liked it) and I hope you enjoy this poem. It's from Celia Cruz

(a)political poem

I think about politics all the time
but I don’t write many
directly political poems
two things worry me:
that the poem
becomes dated
grounded in a moment
and somehow meaningless
a week or month or year later
the second thing
my fear
that somehow writing the poem
I’ll think I’ve accomplished something
I’ve done what needs to be done
and can move on

obama and clinton meet tonight

This is a good thing.

A poem from Celia Cruz:

naming

night extends itself
dark and blue
the piss smell of boxwood in the air
I held your hand
as tightly as I could
not out of fear or love
though both were there
but the comfort
that I could
you would let me
and not say
enough
and walk away
I remember how much
I couldn’t say
I’m sorry
I couldn’t say
goodbye
I remember how
under bridges
there are boats
that move jewel-like
over water
for a minute I wanted you
as completely and as fully
as wanting can be
not flood or storm but web
for a minute
I was afraid
this wouldn’t happen again
maybe I didn’t mean it
or maybe because it was real
or maybe
after a minute
you weren’t there

update and correction and a poem

Today was one of those days where I wrote a little.], worked on my new secret translation project (e-mail me of you care) and also spent some time advising Jesse on his new scrren play which is funny and serious and I think will make a terrific film.

Also, just to clarify: apparently there is a cardiologist is Maryland named Glenn Hirsch, who is quite competent. The incompetent I refer to is not there, but at the NYU Child Study Center. I advise all parents interested in this program, and a special shout here to the folks at AHA to spread the word, he is one of those doctors who makes a diagnosis without meeting kids, claims an interest in their lives and then does nothing to follow up on that. His consultations with parents are short and he is uninterested in what we know about our kids. Our family experiences with him have found him lacking in any kind of social or creative consciousness so if this is the Glenn Hirsch to whom you were thinking of entrusting your child, beware. He's also a terrible prose writer, which kicks me crazy. Koplewicz also has a lousy prose style but he fancies himself a big shot with adolescent kids--the ones I know jut laugh at him. Harold probably thinks they've made a break though but probably it's to the other side and Harry can't go there because it's a place he doesn't understand (you know what happens when you really break on through).

Another poem from Celia Cruz

cemetery

so we linger a long time
and then
try to remember
what remembrance
was supposed to be made of
looking out at cliffs
looking out at the ocean
with a deep forest behind us
you talk about
how you lost your compass
that it was a bad idea
though you really meant fact
you hate facts
how added up
they only have a meaning
so undecided and certain
we always ignore it
today your face takes on
the dreaminess of
love and sex
imagined and real
imagined or real
eyes closed
no movement, movement
you take white pieces of paper
out of your pockets
and throw these
birds, you say, birds
I watch them take flight
stuttering on the air
and think of nests
they’ll return to
illusory homes
a glimpse at a world
unrestrained, perplexed, unfettered


love to all

Mark

catch-up

Yes--I did do all those readings. And these as well:

City Lights (SF)
New Cadences (Santa Cruz)
Perch (Brooklyn)
Cornelia Street Cafe (Manhattan)
St Marks Poetry Project (Manhattan)
Community Books (Brooklyn)
La Mama (Manhattan)
Brooklyn Public Library (Main Branch)

reading Lorca, reading Celia Cruz, having lots of fun, meeting some fun people and getting to talk about poetry and Lorca and Spain, the forgotten poets of the Spanish Civil War (Alexandre, Alberti, Guillen, Cernuda, Hernandez, and so on). Jesse has begun working on a short film that documents the Poet in New York readings, based on an enormous amount of shooting he did during all the touring. It has some great music in it, some great readings and readers. More later on this.

Historic night tonight--the Dems will elect an African American as their candidate for president. Go Barack!

A poem from Celia Cruz:

weather sounds

I thought it would be romantic:
the lights were dimmed
and I kissed you
it thundered
from outside
and not my kiss
though I hoped
you’d make the two the same
what was that?
thunder, me, you
the weather had turned
but we like it:
we like the thunder
we like the splitting atom sound
escape of atoms
into romance
we want this to be
our whole life
act after act
of love, of kindness
with steps together certain
even when the direction wrong

on the road again

Okay--it's been a while since I've blogged--AWP took a lot out of me as has the new semester, two fun courses but both new and they're keeping me on my toes--the New School event was wonderful; you can see photos from it at flickr., AWP was a chance to see lots of old friends. This past Tuesday night WNET 13 (go to thirteen.org to see it on their site if you missed it then or on the Saturday am reprise) featured myself and Pablo talking about Poet in New York, and we're getting ready to do the little west coast tour that has us at City Lights in SF on Thursday, 2/21 at 7 PM, at New Cadences (Santa Cruz)Friday 2/22 at 7PM and we're also taping the Poetry Show which will broadcast on the west coast on Sunday 2/24.

I'm looking forward to it all. Katherine and Jesse are arranging all the touring stuff, which allows me to be a tourist and think about reading and talking about Lorca. I've also started to make notes on the new book I want to write on Spanish surrealism, which will not be academic but more a book about discovery, which excites me because I want to write about how exciting it is to have been discovering all these artists who created this moment in Spanish history and then, because of the rise of fascism meant the end of the flowering of Spanish culture. Yes, a lot of them continued to work, but in exile, no longer a generation.

Wonderful review today on the El Paso Times by Rigoberto Gonzalez http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_8284350.

Check it out.

Other notes:
March readings:
March 4 at Perch (5th Avenue in Brooklyn between 5th and 6th Streets)--nice comfortable space, series, this will be poems from Celia Cruz and some Lorca
March 12 at Cornelia Street Cafe with Lynn Chandhok and Kim Lyons, Bill Zavatsky as host, oh yeah, and again Celia Cruz and Lorca
March 26 at the St Marks Poetry Project, a celebration of Poet in New York with tons of readers, great music (two of the greatest flamenco musicians alive) and food--be there for the fun (and to hear Ron Padgett read Lorca's Ode to Whitman--that alone is worth the price of admission).

April readings:

April 4 at Community Books (7th Ave in Brooklyn)--Pablo will be there and it will be a Lorca fest
April 26 at the Brooklyn Public Library in the new auditorium--this should be fun

More later.

More Spanish Surrealism and a Celia Cruz poem

I think I'm getting a better sense of how this course will be put together. Start with some writings from Breton and Aragon, kind of a background of French surrealism, then go to a discussion of Spain in the 20's and 30's, from the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1923, to the Republic in 1931, to the beginning of the Civil War in 1936. I'll introduce the Generation of 27 (the relationship with the Generation of 98) and the backdrop both of Madrid (Residencia de Estudiantes) and Barcelona. Then we'll start with the poets, a talk Lorca gave in NY and in Cuba in 1929/30 on Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion, then some poems from Poet in New York, Lorca's "Ode to Salvador Dali",followed by Alexandre, Guillen, and Alberti (I'm having trouble finding Cernuda in translation so I may offer these in the reader because I think there are some students registered for the class who speak Spanish). After that, we'll turn to the painters, with statements by Miro and Picasso (plus a Picasso poem) and a long section from The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, which we'll read while we look at their paintings. The next section of the course will deal with theater and film. We'll read Lorca's El Publico (The Public) and a partial text of Un Chien Andalou. We'll screen Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or. After that, I hope we'll have enough time for each student to give a five-seven minute presentation of their final projects (this could take the last four classes of the semester).

At any rate, that's where I am in my thinking. It's taking up a ton of time to think about how to make all this material fit into the semester, but I think I'll manage.

A poem from Celia Cruz:

advice

there’s no clear way to grow
not tall
nor old
nor along with the winter day
this street this afternoon
the sun is blinding
you turn the other way
to watch the walking shadows
walk with you
some teenage girls
in one beautiful voice
stand on a corner and sing
there’s no way here for me to take you home
separated out
their voices wouldn’t seem so
but together
energy and
the way words and meaning
don’t matter
just song
their laughter
what else do you want to hear?
it snowed this morning
the sky is blue
all day there were little things
dishes, clean-up, straighten up
slow down, baby, one girl sings
a sudden deeper solo
voice among their voices
you wonder
is there someone for her now
she’d sing slow down to?
she’s young and tall
steam surrounds her face
and her friends just watch her
swaying, swaying
slow down, baby
slow down

post Christmas, a poem, and a Moleskin for Mark

It was a fine and pleasant Christmas, morning of stocking presents, champagne, salmon, olives, nuts,and so on (for photos, go to the BOTL Triangle link on the right). Reading out loud from Ron Padgett's new book, then giving David Shapiro some equal time from his Selected (these from the pile of books by friends that sits on the coffee table.

Then the goose (stuffed with fresh sage, tarragon and rosemary) went into the oven, Karen came over, more stocking presents, more champagne (oysters this time), and lots of salads, breads. Presents! Too many to speak of but one that interested me in particular since the subject of of moleskins has previously been on this blog. Jesse gave me a moleskin New York, which in some sense is a moleskin for someone visiting NY, a way to keep a journal of one's trip. It has maps, places to record where you ate, where you shopped, what were exciting encounters and when. and so on. So what I've decided to do is go on that trip, to be a tourist in NY for a while, not in the style, though of the tourist who who goes to the Statue of Liberty (which is a fine thing to do), but in the manner of a poet in NY, that is to see the city in a new way, to like Lorca, think of "New York in the poet." It will be interesting, I foresee a constant shifting of moleskins, from the one I use for writing to suddenly taking out my New York one to record a place I want to remember (what is the name of that wonderful tapas restaurant on 9th Street? What did I stop and read in Madison Square Park?). So it will have a sense of journey, giving me a place to re-see and re-think a place most familiar.

(I even made a small copy of the cover of Poet in New York , which today I pasted and laminated to the cover).

Then dinner, of course, goose and wild rice, roasted vegetables (zucchini, squash, onions, garlic, turnips). Katherine made a cranberry sauce, Karen cabbage with chestnuts. A nice rasteau (heavier than a rhone wine, just right for goose), chocolate and fresh fruit for dessert. Then the happy collapse of a meal well-done.

A poem from Celia Cruz:

heredity

I don’t want to translate
azucena
it’s too pretty as itself
in the market in southern Mexico
in the warmth and crowd
was an old woman
selling so many kinds of flowers
yellow, white, purple, orange,
red, blue, scarlet, violet, black
surrounded by them
she sat
maybe the way
the older Mary would have
beatific, the grief and sadness
of her life drained away
by time and hope
grief and sadness replaced
by an infinity of flowers
whose names she made up
perritos (puppies)
conejos (rabbits)
and alegria mia (my happiness)
depending on the day
ay joven, she said to me once
and I wonder who she saw
when she spoke
ay joven (youth), she said
ten cuidado (beware)
pointing out at the world
beyond this small town
with its pottery, its clothing, its food
Mary was transported to heaven
one day
to sit with her son at the throne
she sat on earth
in the market
one day
black and gold huipile (dress)
azucena in her hand
and waited

Interesting discussion on translation and a poem

There's been an interesting discussion on translation on the Bemshaw Swing blog. It's linked to the right so check it out.

Here's a poem from Celia Cruz:

neutral location

what you
make this
city you
make half
in love
half in
despair
its music
is beating
out windows
out doors
its trucks
its trains
its cars
from bridge
to bridge
from street
to street
from one
more body
we take
up space
that isn’t
really there
that really
hasn’t been
for ages
our time
tom toms
and streaks
by it
shakes, thunders
glistens, parades
you wonder
what the
city you’ve
made is
made of
language you
think maybe
that nothing
more you
wonder how
to explain
to someone
far away
how to
get there

So it was that kind of week

Really it was. A lot of work (teaching) and a lot of work all weekend (student work) and so now I'm finally getting to the blog and I'm almost too tired to type (and it's only 7:30 on a Sunday night). But a few things:

--went to Cue yesterday for the Ashbery/Padgett book signing. John translated Reverdy's Haunted House and Ron Reverdy's Prose Poems, which was the poet's first book. Both look very good, nice work by Brooklyn Rail Black Square Editions. Had a chance to chat for a while with Anne Waldman, Trevor Winkfield, and Eugene Ritchie (who I hadn't seen in a very long time) for a little while.

--Publishers Weekly review of Poet in New York is out and okay. They called it "a worthy new version of a 20th-century classic." What's too bad is that the review has some major errors in it (a misreading of the Ode to Whitman for example that kind of undermines the reviewer and thus the review). Sigh.

--The New Yorker got it right when it mentioned Ron's new book of poems. The gods are sometimes on our side.

--There are some beautiful photos on BOTL Triangle and Sunny Side Up (see links) that are worth a good long look.

--The February book trip seems to be finalized. February 21 at City Lights in SF, February 22 at New Cadences in Santa Cruz. We'll also be taping for the Poetry Show on the 22nd for a broadcast on the 24th.

Closing with a poem from Celia Cruz

naming

night extends itself
dark and blue
the piss smell of boxwood in the air
I held your hand
as tightly as I could
not out of fear or love
though both were there
but the comfort
that I could
you would let me
and not say
enough
and walk away
I remember how much
I couldn’t say
I’m sorry
I couldn’t say
goodbye
I remember how
under bridges
there are boats
that move jewel-like
over water
for a minute I wanted you
as completely and as fully
as wanting can be
not flood or storm but web
for a minute
I was afraid
this wouldn’t happen again
maybe I didn’t mean it
or maybe because it was real
or maybe
after a minute
you weren’t there

Fall turns into winter, another poem

A nice couple of days--a good mountain bike ride with Jesse (go to bandoftheland.com to see some of his photos, Katherine and I had dinner with Pablo Beth, Aristides and Maria at Pablo's and Beth's with much toasting of Poet in New York. Review copies should go out next week, as will copies to stores. So go in to your local bookstore and start asking (support the local stores)! Or just order on Amazon and get a discount (support your pocket book).

I'm looking forward to the semester winding down. I love my classes, the students, but it's been a long one and I'm looking forward to the break when my focus will be on preparing for two new courses in the spring, Advanced Poetry and Spanish Surrealism.

Another poem from Celia Cruz

from the dead

an inconclusive silence
the tyranny of uncertainty
we live with the knowledge
of our knowledgelessness
and so we place flowers and keepsakes and stones
on graves, at candles, at trees
thin clichés take over thought:
the horseless rider
the sword and outworn sheath
belief and hope
that on the wind will come these voices
which call us to light, a beckoning
the termination of suffering into void
thin
the pause in cycles
the dead waiting in Homeric clusters
for their chance
to drink from Lethe
into forgetfulness
and toward their chosen new life
I wish them not to be reborn
I wish for better than that
some final party
at the end of grief
Hey, says a soul you know
have a drink.
Someone else tells a joke
an old one you’ve always known
and it’s funnier than ever
laughter fills us
an old joke and laughing for eternity
sometimes life was like this
but enough?
over here
another old friend
shows photos
remember this?
you do
an album full
of everything you ever did
that made you happy

Another Poem from Celia Cruz

tourist

habia un milagro, she said,
a miracle
but in such a quiet voice
you had to ask her
to say it again
which she did
she didn’t like it like that
a voces (loud)
it didn’t seem as true anymore
she looked at you
it seemed just then
she must hate you
must hate anyone like you
she pointed down the road
curving, dusty
she said it was the way to the ruins
you didn’t know
if you wanted to go
you already knew
you wouldn’t see what she had

Celia Cruz

Somebody asked so here it is, the title poem (sort of) to my new manuscript, Celia Cruz fue la voz tropical and Other Poems

Celia Cruz fue la voz tropical en mis sueños

in a dream once
the band arrived in New York
tired, out of sorts
a long road trip
bad weather, bad clubs, bad food
a bus that kept on breaking down
no one wants to play this night
except her
she sings
she always wants to sing
scent of sugar and sweat
of lips, fields, waist, sun
with a voice so like fire
everyone who hears it
wants to make love
and make love the most with her
I am everyone
from the nightclub floor
she points
and in sleep and dream
I follow
oye amor
the band plays, she sings
oye amor
I follow

milestone

A small milestone today: normally I write most of the first drafts of poems in a small moleskin notebook (I always carry one around, something I learned from my friend and collaborator on The Alphabet of the Trees poet Christian McEwen--though I'm not sure she carries a moleskin--it's just the idea of always having a notebook handy). I've found what this has meant is that I write most of my poems someplace else and not in my study. In my study is where I revise, it's almost as though I need (or like) multiple places for beginning and then a central place for working to make the poems better and better.

So there are usually two notebooks that are active at once: the notebook I'm writing in and the notebook I'm writing from. I like to have that distance from the first version to the one I'm going to start revising. Mostly this is to make sure I think the poem is still worth working on. At any rate, as of today, I only have one notebook, the one I'm writing in because in a big push this weekend I finished typing and printing the poems from the notebook I started on 15 February 2007 and finished on 14 June 2007. Which means a nice pile of poems to begin seriously revising over the next weeks. Which is something I'm excited about because revision is something I really like (I'd say love but it's also sometimes so frustrating, but I suppose so is love). I have to say that when I had a residency at VCCA last March (I was on leave last semester) I got a chance to revise with an intensity I'd never had because I arrived with a over one hundred poems. Some I realized pretty quickly I didn't want to work on, but most I did. So for eight, nine, ten hours a day, that was all I did, revise, revise revise (of course I also worked on Poet in New York, sometimes talking with Pablo three or four times a day)., I might have started ten or fifteen new poems the whole time there. It was just working and re-working. What emerged was my Celia Cruz fue la voz tropical manuscript, which I continue to revise even as I'm working on new poems.

So the milestone is the retirement of this notebook, all these new poems to think about. The current moleskin I probably won't finish it for another month, maybe two (this has been a hard working semester) and it's unlikely I'll even begin typing out any poems that are in there until then.

I like when things like this happen, when I feel like I've accomplished something, even as I'm still in the middle of it.