zirconium

I saw this house on a walk a couple of months ago. While I'm nowhere as into architecture or home decor as many in my circles, I'm occasionally fascinated by the variety of materials and tools -- what's available pre-cut or pre-assembled, the frames and bones that are so necessary and so invisible if the job's done right...

Anyway, I also keep thinking of this snapshot when trying to sum up the year so far: under construction. under construction. under construction. I have three main lists right now: Before Road Trip, During Road Trip, and After Road Trip. It was already obvious by the beginning of this month that the "During Road Trip" list is ambitious enough for a half-dozen trips.

I am reminding myself of Conditions of Enoughness. Among other things, there are over twenty specific poems I'd like to draft, revise, polish, and submit during this trip. But it's even more important to shake the stale fluff out of my mental attic, rather than finishing pieces for the sake of having pieces in circulation. The poems will find their readers when I allow myself enough time to let them bloom, even if I miss the deadlines for the original markets.

And, speaking of poems:

7x20 featured "Stuck" this morning.

"Reckoning with Wreckage" received an honorable mention in a contest at The Dictionary Project. (They kindly provided some helpful feedback in the notice, so it's one of the pieces I'll be tucking into the travel folder...)

Issue 18 of Spillway includes my poem "Not Your Honey."

(For those of you who like hearing about publication paths: I first drafted this in January, for a contest with the theme of "Encounters." It wasn't selected as a finalist, so I then submitted it to The Pedestal; the poetry editor for the issue in question contacted me a week later to see if I'd be okay with her publishing it in Spillway instead. [Which highlights the issue of "fit," which I have encountered several times elsewhere this year -- i.e., submissions that were near-misses not because of quality but because they just didn't gell with the other poems the editor had selected for the collection in question. I think (judging from what I glimpse on forums and the like) that many writers aren't aware of how much effort editors invest in the shape and flow of an issue -- that their job isn't merely to select the best poems and stories, but selecting the best pieces that happen to complement the other pieces they will be featuring. And this is a useful reminder to myself, when I'm sulking yet again about not getting shortlisted for x or included in y, even though I know damn well that my odds of placing more work will go up substantially when I simply finish more work and send it out (and do so as many times as necessary). The piece that isn't quite right for A may be perfect for what B might be planning. Funny, that.]

This just in (via Mary): Belle DiMonté assesses The Moment of Change (now available as an e-book, btw!) and finds it "beautiful and transcendent in every sense." [The collection includes my poem "The Stepsister."]