On Tuesday a friend of mine and I met up for beers and he was much flirtier than usual, which was totally lovely--mmm, it's been too long since I kissed and groped and cooed cuteness.  I hope we do this again!

Next week Kate Durbin will be in Vegas---Yayyyyyyyyyyyy, I've really wanted to meet her for a while now so I'm happy to have the chance!  If only Gina Abelkop and Kate Zambreno would be here too!  Or maybe they magically will be!

I submitted some poems to Spork lastnight; here's the opening of one.  I, frankly, think this start is horrid, tho I think the piece gets better as it goes, and that the subject is important:

Literacy: A Privilege


I am
A poet
But I
Would never tell you in
Person. I do not
Avoid embarrassing practice
Nor do I court it,

I am not comfortable with the opening two lines' declaration; I do, though, think the linebreak redeems a bit: breaks up the certainty of the declaration; or does it make it more emphatic?

In a recent post, I used the word lame; I shouldn't do this: it screams implicitly privileging conventional bodiedness and if I get angry at subtly--well not subtle, but contemporary discourse would say so--bigoted words like straight, I surely ought to be mindful of other words with related problems.

I do feel terrible about being irked at BlazeVox as I hate how much crud has been slung its way as of the past 6 months; and yes, I agree I should have made sure that what GG sent me lastweek was the most recent version for correction; only after the fact did I see he sent me a september version.  I wish my first full-length book felt like a "victory" not a span of I-flubbed-up.  This process has lessened my self-esteem; especially now that the editor thinks I'm a crap.  I guess it's been a good learning experience; well not good, but good that I've learned I don't enjoy seeing work to the print-stage and that I'm not good at this stage of the game.  I have a bad feeling what gets printed is going to be neither what has already been printed as a sample or the most right wrong version, but rather some new monster.

Ugh, I've got good blurbs, and I do think the poems in the collection mostly work pretty well--so I'm so sad that I feel like the whole thing is a big pretentious joke!

I guess with knowing typos I can't send the work to R Silliman or, for that matter, anyone; or is this me being absurd?

 

I really hope the prior printed version of FD is what gets printed more, and not a wonky version!

Ok, For days is not going well; GG is pissed, which seems not wholly fair, as recent problems have stemmed from me being sent the wrong version of the manuscript to correct, so I corrected an off copy and hence now there's a weird hybrid with the latest fixes and old errors.  I vote for running the printers version, which has two tiny errors.  GG is annoyed and finds this lame; I don't want to continue this swamptrudge!  Ugh I'm grumpy.  I imagine BlazeVox will never "do" a book of nine again; which is fine, as honestly GG and I just don't seem to communicate all that well.  It's sad to start a work's entrance into the world on such a crap note, but oh well--I need to be done with For Days, and two uncapitalized first lines won't kill me nor a reader; and the printers copy is something GG  does not seem to have, so I vote for no-more messing around with corrections that I may avoid more of the prior mentioned hybrid versions.