ordering havoc

Somehow in the last 5-10 years I became more of a creative person that tends to think in terms of projects, something which applies both in terms of writing and art. When I was putting togther my first couple of chapbooks, then the fever almanac, I had no idea where I was going til I was almost there and realized most of the poems were about memory, language, and the body. Pretty much every manuscript since has a tighter focus and an aiming point in mind from the very beginning. in the bird museum was an almagamation of several smaller projects put together, all built around the tension between knowledge, transgression, and danger. girl show was focused big project, as was brief history of a girl as match, the first a all about transformation and transcendance, the second about the conflict between women as the subject and object of art, as muse vs. artist.

As I've been finishing up havoc, and shaving off alot of stuff that I think may be another project all together, I realize how much for the first time, these poems feel a little closer to home than anything I've written, or at least more semi-autobiographical (I say semi, becuase there is a little blurring of details, merging of various people into composites, etc.) I always said I most loved how books of poems create their own little worlds. I feel finally now, after writing with a more historical bent for my last few projects, that havoc is rooted firmly in the present, ie there's alot of pop culture in them, media, a little bit of kitch. I've been debating over an extended version or a chapbook version and I think I have finally decided on the shorter, since I kind of want to go with the immediacy fervor and get them out in the world in the next few months (as opposed to possibly years from now), so I'm thinking maybe October. The ones that remain in there are the ones that align with the books themes of containment and chaos, a female containment/chaos in particular, or the "girl-shaped world" in the first poem of the book, I guess.