2022 in poems and pictures
2022 at turns feels like one of the very best years but also one of the worst, with the great freedom, curiosity, and gains of the first 2/3 perhaps shadowed by the very last part. While there is much to be said of the adventures of early to mid 2022 and less to be said of the last two or three months, it still deserves a round up of sorts. The kind I do every year in terms of projects finished, abandoned, goals accomplished, goals threw out. Reinventions of goals and income strings and things I'd like to work toward in 2023.
Creative-wise, which is perhaps the most important, it was good year, with three zine projects (the plague letters, unreal city, and memoir in bone and ink) all finished up and released into the world in digital format, as well as the initial video series for the last project, which was a fun bit of summer endeavors and something I want to do more of. While I didn't do much engaging in the po-biz side of things via seeking publication, I shared a lot of work in various ways and on various platforms, which is sometimes an even better way to gain audience interest anyway. I moved pretty quickly from completion on some projects, and am still sitting on others waiting for edits, so there actually wasn't much to send out in submission that was either not ready for publication or not at all ready for publication. This is by far a better set of circumstances, but it means outside of a handful of ready pieces from granata one of which was taken, I haven't done much submitting.
Outside of finishing up the unreal city series, and then writing memoir in bone & ink during NAPOWRIMO, this year's other chief endeavor was granata, the Persephone poems, which I worked on through the summer. I was able to edit some of the earliest poems in the project, but there will be more once it settles a little. I was (and am) still unsure whether I want to make it a full-length or leave it as a longer chap, but that will be sorted out in the coming year. There is also a small series of relationship poems I abandoned in October and tend to go back to when my head is fully back in the game.
I released the gorgeousness that is animal, vegetable, monster back in the spring and am always amazed at how many people are willing to buy copies when much of the poetry world seems like crickets somethings, so thank you! I'll be finishing out the year with automagic due out in a couple weeks, so keep an eye out for more promo on that and I'll be adding details on how to order soon. While I love little zine projects and their immediacy and electronic availability, I also like to have something heftier and more tangible available for traditional book lovers. While I write a lot of short series in themselves, much of the time I am writing toward larger bodies of work in which those smaller projects hang together in a sort of constellation. There will be more books due in 2023, including collapsologies and whatever I decide to do with the Persephone project. Also another, as yet untitled, half-finished project that will be coming in 2024 no doubt.
Most of my art endeavors this year have been in the cover design vein, or for video like my Christmas collages, but I am feeling an itch to maybe get back to painting. The goal was to add more to the shop once I had caught up on orders and late books, which was going well, at least until the last two months of upset, but I should be able to get back to that full heartedly in the new year and finally finish up some new paper goods and prints I've been hoarding for awhile. There are still some late books, as well as the things I've been accepting for 2023 coming later in the year (I am still in the thick of the last batch of submissions which was delayed by the fall, but responses will be going out soon.)
I will maybe write a more goal focused project for 2023, as well as a post devoted to the other kinds of writing this past year I've been up to that have been the bread and butter of my income. , but they perhaps need a post all on their own since a lot has been happening on that front. Until then...
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