dulcetly...notes on a bookish life

Two more days. Not like I didn’t already have a vacation technically this summer, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Two glorious weeks this time. Trying to get all this little last minute stuff done. This morning, I did manage to procure some binding thread for The Violin Teacher, of which I hope to get at least the author’s copies sewn and shipped before the weekend. Also, a couple dgp orders to fill, and I have to send copies of the print annual to Quimby’s.

Hopefully, I’ll be a bit more productive poem-wise. I did get some good revisions done on the megascript last time, but only one actual completed new poem. This round, a few days in Wisconsin, and then my nose to the grindstone. I want to rework what I have of dulcet, the prose poems, and shake loose some other ideas that have been rattling round my head. I’m thinking maybe dulcet could turn into my thesis and not just a chapbook collection. I’d like to be at least a quarter way into it by the end of the summer—roughly 15 pieces or so. And theres always the Joseph Cornell poems and the carnivalesque stuff.

This afternoon have been working my way through Lauren Matthew’s chapbook manuscript, which is forthcoming from Fractal Edge Press. She asked me to write a blurb for the back cover and I’m totally psyched. While I’ve written reviews in the past, mostly of novels, I’m not quite sure of my blurbing skills though, I don’t want to sound generic and pretentious. It’s a great book though, most of the poems I’d never seen, even though I’ve done quite a few readings with the poet. Mention of blurbs always reminds me of this poem by Julianna Baggot .

Other than that prepared a couple of submissions, one for isotope and one for gargoyle. Just got back a batch of poems from Pleaides, and as they were sort of the best I’ve got at the moment, was woefully disappointed. They were the same ones that I submitted to Agni when I was asked to submit something else and then they were promptly and surreptitiously rejected. Rejection sucks. On the bright side, it is much, much cooler. Last night was probably the first serious sleep I’ve gotten now that the bedroom is at a comfortable temperature. Today, sunny, windy, and cooler. Perfection.