Have Words Will Travel

Every time I post here, I feel like I should apologize for not posting in so long.  But most of the time, if I’m not posting, I’m writing and/or submitting and/or reading, so it’s all for the cause.  Besides, is anyone actually reading this?  I didn’t think so.  (Ha.)

Anyway, since my last post, I’ve been busy…you guessed it: writing, submitting, and reading.  Also, hosting out-of-town guests, which is always fun.  A couple of days ago I finally came up with an ending for a poem that was really giving me a hard time, so I was able to slip it into its assigned spot in my manuscript and get that baby mailed out to a contest I’ve been wanting to enter for a couple of years.  And postmarked it three weeks before the deadline — go me!

My manuscript has changed so much since its original version as my thesis.  Like many theses, I would guess, it was a big rush at the end and I had to shove in almost everything I had that was remotely suitable in order to graduate on time.  So, although it passed all the readers and I got my MFA, it wasn’t something I was particularly ready to send out.  I had a poet friend look at it and got some great feedback from her, most of which echoed what my gut had been telling me (those guts, they can be very perceptive you know), but I still wasn’t sure exactly how to make it sing.  I wrote a few new poems that I really liked, which enabled me to remove some of the weaker ones, which was a good start.  And then one morning while I was drying my hair, I realized there was one particular poem that absolutely HAD to be at the beginning.  Once I’d figured that out, the rest of it pretty much fell into place with the re-ordering.  And although it probably still isn’t perfect (is any manuscript perfect?) it’s something I’m proud of, and I think is worthy of submission.  And I believe it makes much more of an impact the way it stands now.  All of which just goes to show that a writer’s subconscious knows these things, and sometimes you just have to be quiet and listen for it.

In other news, the new Poet Lore is finally out and there I am on page 34.   All I can say is, WOW, what a thrill!  Granted, it’s my first really good print publication, and therefore extra exciting, but does it ever get old?  I’m thinking perhaps not.  Funny thing is, they published one of my least favorite poems.  What’s that all about?  I guess a writer is not always the best judge of her own work?  Or taste is subjective?  Something like that…ha.

Now that the summer is well and truly over, I am determined to make it to more readings, both in the city and here in New Jersey.  I’ve been wrapped up in other things, but it’s important to me to support my fellow poets, and I really enjoy hearing other people read and discovering new voices that I love.  I think I will need to set a goal to get it done, though.  Perhaps two per month?  It’s tough with three kids and a husband traveling every other week.  Woe is me.

I was worried that when I finished my MFA, I would no longer have anyone to critique my work, and I imagined myself falling into a dark, cobwebby hole of unpublishable poems that I didn’t know how to fix.  Since then, some of my fellow student poets and I have made a pact to stick together and continue sharing and commenting on work, even though they all live in Washington and I’m here in New Jersey.  The Internet makes virtual critique groups easy.

My current issue, however, is that I have this manuscript that my virtual critique group have already seen and commented extensively on and, while their comments were helpful as always, they’ve seen many of the poems so many times and in so many drafts that it’s become hard to be objective.  I need a fresh pair of eyes to help me turn “thesis” into “publishable manuscript that will leave contest judges sockless all over the country.”  Luckily, such a person has come along.  A long-time reader of my other (anonymous, non-poetry) blog and I have been chatting via email for a few months and playing the odd game of Word Twist on Facebook.   She’s a poet, too, a few years ahead of me in her writing career, but (I think) we’re more or less peers.  We’ve both got manuscripts we want to publish, so she suggested we trade and comment.  I am ridiculously happy to have someone to swap with.  And if the quality of her comments is as high as the quality of the poems I’ve read so far in her manuscript, I’ll be in good shape.  (No pressure, though, LC.  Ha.)

Not only that, but yet another blog-reader poet friend has offered information on workshops that specifically address getting a manuscript into the best possible shape for publication.  I think I will look into that.  Has anyone ever been to one?  If so, I’d love to hear your impressions.

Meanwhile, today I bought my ticket to the Academy of American Poets’ 2008 Poets Forum in NYC.  This is one of the reasons I love living near New York.  I don’t know how I’m going to wait until November.

It seems that my little hiatus is over.  I woke up this morning raring to go, and the minute I got back from dropping my daughter at camp, I launched myself into preparing submissions.  I’ve been getting a lot of contest notifications, so I ended up preparing three contest submissions: one for single poems, one for a chapbook manuscript, and one for a full book-length manuscript.  I have several more to do.  The reading fees may kill me, though, which  I suppose is why so many poets object to the whole contest dealio.   Still, I’m encouraged by the Nimrod placement, and it seems like contests are the only way to get a book deal anymore, so as long as I have the lettuce, I’ll keep submitting.

The thing that is so hard to believe is that it took me two hours to prepare three submissions.  Obviously I need to streamline my process.

I reckon I’ll spend the afternoon doing some non-contest submissions, since I haven’t sent any since May, and then I’ve got poems to respond to for my fellow students.  It feels good to jump back in.

Alrighty, then.  My one commenter [*cough cough*] encouraged me to go ahead and submit to the contest because a chapbook is a Good and Holy thing, and since she kicked my butt in Word Twist on Facebook, and is therefore smarter than I (or less paralyzed under pressure), I decided to take her advice. (Shout out to LC!) Chapbook-manuscript-assemblage has commenced.  It is exciting.  And daunting.  I’ve spent the entire semester studying the various ways that poets organize their manuscripts, as well as what effect said organization has on the flow, arc, and/or emotional impact of the aforementioned manuscripts, and I managed to apply the knowledge gleaned to my thesis, but a chapbook is a whole other monster.  (It must be run-on sentence day.)

In other news, today I got a copyright agreement from Poet Lore, as well as a galley proof.  My first ever galley proof!  Does it make me utterly green and dorky that I was completely thrilled and did a little dance?  (And once again — don’t answer that.  Ha.)

Today my email inbox was full of calls for poems, manuscripts, and so on.  Contests here, contests there, contests contests everywhere.  I don’t like to enter contests because they typically cost money and I feel like my chances of winning are slim.  Not because I don’t think I have work worth publishing, but because it seems like the world is glutted with MFA grads with great poems all entering contests.  I mean, how can one even compete anymore?  And sometimes it just seems so arbitrary.  And exhausting.

However, I saw a contest today that I thought about entering.  I have no idea why.  Call it a gut feeling.  It’s for a chapbook, though, up to 26 pages.  The question is…is it even worth it?  I mean, does a chapbook mean anything anymore?  Will publishers of full-length manuscripts even care?  Will it put me any closer to my goal of publishing a full-length book of poetry?  Certainly, the chapbook would encompass my very best 26 pages, which would also then be contained later within a full-length book manuscript.  Is that kosher?  I have to assume so, just as people publish single poems all over the place and then include them in books.

And then the big question:  am I totally over-thinking this?  (I’m guessing the answer might be yes.)  Advice (or even assvice) welcomed.

This week I’ve been putting the final touches on my thesis manuscript, which is due next week. Yesterday I filled out my application to graduate, which requested a blurb on what the thesis is actually about. Although most of my poems fit in 3 or 4 definite thematic sections, there are by necessity a few random ones, and coming up with an over-arching theme that touches on everything wasn’t something I’d really done. In fact, I didn’t think I even had an over-arching theme.

Interestingly, I ended up finding one fairly easily. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m an expert BS’er or because it really existed in my subconscious all along. I like to think it’s the latter. And once I’d found it, I realized that my title was all wrong. And then when I changed my title to reflect the Big Theme, I realized that the final section needed to be completely re-ordered. The good news is that I figured all of this out before submitting it for review.

If you’re curious, the title is Uncertain Balance.

And the blurb?

Uncertain Balance is a four-section collection of primarily narrative poetry exploring themes of imbalance and displacement in terms of physical location, atmosphere, and the emotions that stem from the loneliest and most challenging moments we face in our lives. The collection focuses specifically on the displacements of childhood within family transitions, in the transition to adulthood and parenthood, as well as the cultural displacements and discoveries of the adoption process, for both biological and adoptive parents, as well as the child herself.

Riveting, no? (Ha. Don’t answer that.)

I reckon once the thesis is done and I start working with the manuscript as an actual book instead of a thesis, things will change somewhat. In fact, an entire section will be coming out, which will make the narrative arc and overall theme much clearer.  (And with any luck, publishable.)