I haven’t posted in a few days, but not for lack of poetry. I’ve actually been super busy finishing up the semester. As of Friday, I will have completed all my requirements to graduate. Woooo! The thesis is actually done and on its way to my advisor, but that was the easy part. Not that it was actually, easy. I don’t mean to sound flip, because two years of intense work went into it, but I don’t find writing poems to be psychologically wrenching the way writing reviews and critical essays is. And there is a review between me and the end of the semester, so I’m pecking away at it this week. I have to pull out all my tricks to get it done without too much agony — such as writing a page, then rewarding myself with an hour of reading or something. I know, suck it up and write the thing already!

I will say that the book I chose to review is actually a great pleasure, so that’s positive. I’m reviewing Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard, which won the Pulitzer, and it is a stunning book. I’m going to have a hard time finding anything critical to say. Actually, I take that back — I do have one suggestion that I think would have improved it, which has to do with the ordering of the poems and the division into sections, but you know it’s all so subjective anyway.

I must be off now to run a couple of miles on the treadmill (writing does involve a large amount of time sitting on one’s posterior, after all) but I’ve downloaded the first part of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to listen to on my iPhone while I run. I’ll report back as to whether it helps or hinders.