notes & things | 2/27/2021
Every time I write 2021, it seems like an impossibility. Still, the latter part of this week, the very last of February, has been warmer and the snow in its enormous drifts, slowly whittling away. I watched a video if the ice breaking up on the lake, which is a good sign (I know she's over there, but the mounds of snow and sand make it hard to see her from the bus in daytime, and it's all blackness on my way home in any season.) March is technically the beginning of spring according to meteorologics, but we have at least a few weeks where anything at all can happen. Still, I am in better sorts this weekend, even though it's been a long grindy week that began with webpage building for a fairly large faculty publication showcase and ended with meetings and zooms and a backlog of ILL shipments needing to go out. Still I can walk freely on the sidewalks without dodging slush and ice, so it's much better than even a week ago.
Today, I've been getting poems ready for my Pretty Owl Poetry reading this evening, the first I've done from home (the Poetry Foundation one I did in the library) I will likely shut the cats in the bedroom to stop them from interrupting as they occasionally do for most work-related meetings. I'm reading some of the tabloid poems, including the one in the journal ("Dick Cheney is a Robot"), as well as some of the conspiracy theory pieces that I've been working on this year. On one hand, virtual readings are nice since they let me read for things I would not have before due to location and with an unlimited audience to boot. I also do not have to spend 45 to an hour on public trans getting to readings in seeming every part of the city but my own. Also, my social awkwardness feels less acute via zoom in some ways, but more in others. We'll see how it goes. I also need to keep reminding myself of time zone variations in the virtual world. It's still strange to think that even a year ago, we'd never have dreamed the norm of reading to web cams instead of real people in a real room. That I'd even be doing a reading from my living room on a random Saturday night. What's been lost, what's been gained.
Becuase I needed to polish up a few of the new pieces for tonight, I spent some time earlier going over everything new, which I've sorted just been pouring into a document as I finished bits. That particular series is far from finished, but I'd like to get it under wraps in March anyway before I move on to something else. There are probably around 20 that I'm happy enough with. I will be finishing up my final print file for FEED this week after a month of just not really being able to siphon off time for those final corrections. My days get bogged down in minutia, so that proof copy has just been sitting forlornly on my desk all month long. She is a lovely thing, though. Once I do that, I should have copies within a month (they were backed up over the holidays, but I imagine things will go faster with the final printing.) I'll be doing another big promo push for the book release as we get closer.
I am also working on the very last piece of swallow. I've been posting he pieces as I don't want wait to share them, but intend it to be a sort of video chapbook, so there will be something more whole and cohesive design-wise (well more so than a Youtube playlist anyway) coming your way when I've nailed down that very last segment. The swallow poems will be available in FEED in print , so the timing is good, since the videos are great ways to harness new readers.
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