A Brush with Greatness - Part 2

 

It is hard to believe that it has been a week since Q and I stood in our finery for our photo before entering the Shrine Theater to discover the fate of our book. Anticipation is so much more absorbing than fact. Think about it in your own life. We worry and we hope and once we receive outcomes, all that effort is nullified. I keep trying to live without expectation, anticipation, but it is a human trait so I am not always very successful.

We did not receive the trophy but we gained a great deal in the process and we made some wonderful contacts, as well as shared the experience with family and friends. We will always be able to use the nomination as a marketing tool. We are also always able to say to each other that we knew we were right; if we applied, we would get the nomination. The big machines that support several of our fellow nominees aside, we were in good standing with notable authors as a part of a remarkable program. There are politics involved and we learned a great deal about that as well. But we were there and we attended the big show besides. Quraysh was thrilled beyond belief when Ms. Cicely Tyson said hello as she brushed past his aisle seat. We were both astounded and honored to stand in line for the Red Carpet with the Tuskegee Airmen. Now these were true celebrities, authentic heroes, and living history.

Would I do it again? Yes I would. But I would be much wiser in some of the logistics that such events entail. I would have a publicist ram through the clogs at the velvet rope. And I hope I would bring home the hardware, if I could. On the other hand, I am satisfied and had a terrific time so it was all worth the time, effort, money, and anticipation. Thanks to all who supported me personally to make it possible and to those who have and continue to support this book. 

Our Brush with Greatness - And Now Back to Work

A month ago, my coauthor, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and I received notice of nomination for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Instructional Literature. We had been confident that we would be so recognized if we presented the book for consideration and that day affirmed our anticipation, as well as our belief that we have created something of tremendous value.


This experience is as close to Dancing with the Stars or American Idol I can imagine right now. We were in formidable company in the listed nominees:

• Bertice Berry's A Year to Wellness and Other Weight Loss Secrets;
• Synthia St. James' Living My Dream: An Artistic Approach to Marketing;
• The T.D. Jakes Relationship Bible: Life Lessons on Relationships from the Inspired Word of God; and
• Too Important to Fail: Saving America's Boys, Tavis Smiley's companion book to his recent PBS documentary.

 

We were clearly faced with a great deal of work to compete with this slate of nominees. Each has a tremendous national presence, the backing of big publishers, and so on. We are two poets and educators running as fast as we can to share the tools and resources we have put nearly 5 years of our lives developing that resulted in this book coming into the world.

 

It was last week when I started thinking that we could possibly win, in spite of our relative newcomer status. I can liken it to the musical "overnight sensation" whose bio states that there are 20 years of small gigs and broken-down-van tours before hitting the big time. Maybe this would be the chance for the lesser known to pull off a grassroots campaign and surprise everyone.

It would prove to be labor intensive and daunting. Then there was the concern of getting both of us to Los Angeles for the ceremony and array of events that nominees would be able to attend. Quraysh had the support of his university for this travel, giving me moments to question myself again about not pursuing an academic career.

I grappled with my choices. I looked into Kickstarter since I know many who have been successful with that vehicle for jumpstarting projects but decided that a direct appeal would be better and leave the Kickstarter option open when I needed to seed a bigger project. I struggled with asking my community for support for many reasons but it was the only answer. A couple of key confidantes urged me to state my need so one Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, at 10 p.m., I sent out an email to 250 friends, family members, and colleagues petitioning for support by voting for the book, sharing the word of the nomination campaign, and then the very specific need for travel funds so I could head to Tinsel Town.

 

Astoundingly, I had pledges and contributions to meet most of my expenses within 24 hours, then more that permitted me to accommodate the rise in the hotel costs I incurred from first research on line to what it would actually cost once I could book the room, as well as breathing easily in paying for incidentals, meal tabs, etc. It was a remarkable outpouring of love as well. I was overwhelmed and honored.

 

We were in the middle of Hollywood's fluff. We quickly learned the rules of the Red Carpet, even if not overly successful in getting before the cameras. We dressed up and strutted with the famous, the almost famous, as well as some of our friends who were nominated in the poetry and fiction categories, all of us a little glazed by the frenzy and flash.

 

Bishop Jakes won the trophy. He was not there to accept the award and offer gratitude. The two lithe young actresses tasked with the pre-show award announcements accepted on his behalf. Naturally, a part of me is wishing that this could have been a 21st century Cinderella story in which we received the prize, and all of the opportunity that we would have garnered from it, especially the press being a winner would have afforded our project and resultant work as consultants. Yet I know that we are winners to have gotten into the deep with this roster of noted authors. We will always be able to tell folks that we were Image Award nominees. We will always be affirmed in the mission of this book from the beginning of our collaboration to this very day. We were right...

 

In the next episode, I will share some of the tales from the Red Carpet. Right now, I need a shower and I have to head out to the social media networks to thank everyone for their vibes, prayers, and support. To all of Quraysh's and my friends and circles, we are the winners. I am grateful to you all as well as for this marvelous, confounding life.

 

 

 

ODS Nominated for NAACP Image Award!

The NAACP Image Award nominations were announced in Los Angeles at 9:00 a.m. PST on Thursday, January 19, 2012. I am honored to share that my coauthor, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and I were nominated for our book, Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community, in the category of Instructional Literature. What a thrill this is to be considered in this significant arena of recognition.

The Howard University literary journal, Amistad, republished an excerpt including the foreword by the esteemed educator, Dr. Carol D. Lee, and the prologue. The link above will take you to the site, and the reprint starts on page 99.

You can order ODS from the major on-line sources: Powell's, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

But most of all, you can vote for us for the NAACP Image Awards: http://www.naacpimageawards.net/43/nominees-and-honorees/cast-your-vote/. Your advocacy and support are appreciated. The Awards will be broadcast live on NBC on Friday, February 17th, at 8 p.m. EST. Wouldn't it be marvelous to give an acceptance speech?! Ha!

 

Goodbye 2011 - It's Been Good to Know Ya!

Every year, I find the transition from one year to the next unsettling. Perspectives change just in the passage of a day into another year. It is odd. This year, Samoa is losing a whole day as they switch to a time zone that is more in keeping with their primary trade partners. That is how elusive and malleable time is, because it is an arbitrary construct that suits the mood of humanity more than the cycles of the moon or the turn of the seasons. Time makes things convenient and provides agreement among our species, as well as conflict and guilt. This is proven every time we are late for any appointment.

The end of the year is the review time for many of us. I enter every year saying, "Next year is my turnaround time...the challenges will ease...I will make my breakthrough to stability..." Then, each year gives me many blessings and a wrath of challenges to adjust to as I journey through the calendar.

As I entered 2011, I was extremely optimistic. I knew it was the year that Our Difficult Sunlight was going to be released, after 3 years in the making. I appreciate Teachers & Writers Collaborative for publishing the book, taking the risk on our proposal. 

This book was going to open many doors and further my career, as well as provide new opportunities for my coauthor, Quraysh Ali Lansana. Somehow and with many bumps and trials, the book was made manifest, starting as a thought and a list of ideas nearly 6 years ago. It is a remarkable accomplishment. What I did not anticipate was that promoting it was going to be so dependent on the efforts of Q and myself. But we know how to do that. We have been promoting our own books of poetry for years. So we rolled up our sleeves and got busy. Most of our promotional efforts is through personal contacts and the internet; we are building our market and the books are getting into the hands of those who benefit from our pedagogy, even if at a slower pace than we anticipated. 

I have lost one of my major contracts in the 2011-12 school year due to the impact of the economy on school districts. It is a travesty what our leaders is permitting and actually orchestrating in the realm of American education. I could go on for a long time about this issue. I Tweet about it regularly. And now it affects me directly.

With the rug pulled out from under me again, I have been scraping together what I can to get through these past 6 months until I could redefine my work profile and recreate the sources of income to replace that work now gone. I have been in a dark place in all of this but I have also responded by stretching beyond the boundaries I have previously recognized or created. What has come of that is a confidence in my work and capacity that I did not possess before this. I see myself as a mature artist with a body of work as a foundation that gives me pride and a hope for all the new work that is lined up in my brain and in various files on my computer like planes on the tarmac at O'Hare.

I am 2 months behind on almost all of my bills. I am shuffling funds to meet the most crucial need any given day and sometimes arguing with bill collectors as to why I cannot agree to their suggestions for the payments they want at that moment. I have found that if the employees on the other end of the line are American, they almost always understand my frustrations. They live here and they are talking to hundreds of people like me every week. I will get through. I know this. When I am most frightened, I remind myself that I will get through because I am resourceful, resilient, and relentless. And because I always have...why would it change now?

I have a wonderful part-time job working at the Downtown Writer's Center as workshop coordinator. I follow in the footsteps of Jennifer Pashley in this role and hold a hearty commitment to this organization, now in its 11th year. I have taught there since the beginning and now we are planning for new programs that will continue to build that community of writers in the Central NY region. I also continue to teach there, which is a delightful experience in supporting other writers achieve their own capacity. After all, we teach what we want to learn!

Quraysh and I developed a number of trainings throughout 2011 that were exhilarating as they unfolded, including a day with educators at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum last winter. We attended several conferences to offer panels and workshops, all of them a tremendous success. We met many teachers and teaching artists who are striving to connect with our nation's youth throughout the country and in spite of the many limitations. We celebrate them all for their efforts.

We both visited colleges and universities to share the book and our own creative work as poets. I look forward to many more opportunities in the realm of higher education. But I am very grateful for those thus far, especially our trip to the University of New Haven, and my visit to Waynesburg University this fall.

We have applied for a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. We have so many to thank for this past year for welcoming us and helping promote our book. We are hoping for much recognition and continued support of our book to develop and grow its market, now that the snowball has started its roll down from the mountaintop. We will endeavor to find ways of sharing our pedagogy, as presented in ODS and, hopefully, we will realize great success for the efforts.

I am personally hoping for several other opportunities for which I have made application. I am often reminded by my dear friend, Dale Davis, of the advice of the great Al Poulin, founder of BOA Editions, Ltd.; she tells me that Al would often say that you have to launch many balloons into the air. At some point, the more options one pursues, the more likely success will unfold. Then we must also remember: it is a waiting game as well. To wait with optimism and accepting that I am of the caliber of candidate for any grant, fellowship, consulting gig, or other career opportunity but without attachment to the outcome in the waiting. This is the most difficult aspect of facing the future. 

School projects start in a couple of weeks. I will return to one of my favorite schools, the Watkins Glen Middle School. I will also be introduced to two new schools in Horseheads, NY, in a collaborative arts-in-ed project with the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY. This is a gem of a cultural experience in a small city, a surprise and a treasure trove of art.

I am also creating programming with the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY, another fabulous museum and arts community in another small city. Art is everywhere and often undervalued, but, like school reform, another lengthy and emotional discussion.

I also continue with my efforts as managing editor of the Comstock Review. I have been very tardy in the publishing schedule as I learn how to integrate this important job into my life but we have come through our 25th anniversary and I am planning for the future while I catch up on the backlog. I only hope that all the poets will continue to be patient and forgive for the delays. I also anticipate that the quality of the issues will be satisfaction enough. I am proud of our journal and it is an honor to facilitate the publication of so many talented writers. Here's to many more years but that, again, is a lengthy discussion regarding building that future and all that it involves. 

I have other projects that are brewing, other potential sources of income and career development. I will repeat my New Year's rituals of meditation in the 30 minutes leading up to the turn at midnight from one reality to the next. I will ring the bell 108 times, as I have been doing since I first visited the West Coast and sat in the zendo at the Hartford Street Zen Center in the late 1980s. Then I will take all of the little prayer requests I have written and placed in a special receptacle throughout the year and burn them in my chiminea with some lavender and rosemary. I will release my fears and disappointments and petition the universe to move me forward and answer my prayers. I will wake later that morning feeling refreshed and I will continue to put one foot in front of the next as I progress through the year. Here's hoping...my fingers are crossed...

I am filled with gratitude for the countless blessings of this year, too many to cite here but clearly cataloged in my gratitude journal and etched on my heart. This miracle of life, even at its darkest, astounds me.

Thanks for reading my blog throughout this year and I hope you will continue to return. Please share my link with friends. Consider purchasing Our Difficult Sunlight, either for yourself or for a friend who teaches. I am entrenched in the progressive education reform tweeting world. Find me on Twitter if you do that sort of thing: @gappoet. It is always a spirited exchange!

Have a happy and safe New Year. Be well in all ways. Have a happy and safe New Year. I will see you in 2012. Proceed and be bold. I will see you in 2012.

Digging Yellow Dock Is Always A Potent Metaphor

Saturday morning, fairly early and definitely quiet. I am bearing witness to the slow waking of my neighborhood, the first weekend the students are back. Classes start Monday. The tone has changed. Still, over the trill of crickets and songbirds' breakfast chatter, a church bell sounds in the distance, signal that morning mass is over. The miracle has happened once again. The sun is gentle and crisp.

In the past week, I have been systematically addressing the 2 years of overgrowth in my garden. I have to be gentle with my back so I have to limit my time but, if I am consistent, I can make good progress. I always identified with the tortoise when I was a kid.

Since we have also had consistent rain this week, coupled with the end of season pacing that allows the roots to flex their muscles less, the soil is perfect for disruption.

I have to decide how I want to redefine the form and texture of this garden, now that the sister maples are gone. The stump mulch I convinced the arborists to leave behind has been fully incorporated into my garden and the neighbor's yard. There is a topography now to play with, as well as new planting options since there is so much more light. I can return to my interplay with rocks. I know there are some that are ready to be off the ground, ready cause confusion and marvel with their acrobatics as they balance in musical ways. 

I dig weeds best when I am working through some new level of healing or awareness. This has been another summer of facing zero income and redefining my work plan. It is the summer of my 40th high school reunion, a significant milestone. It is the summer of my recommitment, after considerable review, to the work, the learning, the journey of my identity as both poet and educator.

There are so many ways I can express all of the ideas that swirl through my brain, much like Hurricane Irene this morning, slapping the east coast with her outrage. Somewhere I find the eye of the frenzy as I dislodge the deepest tap of the dock root or chicory. Fear is exorcised and everything becomes clear  for a few moments. I ignore the incessant ringing of the phone inside the house, bill collectors and those who anticipate I am available. I am working. I am not obliged to answer quite yet. I am writing and I am strengthening, readying for the next phase of both my life and my sometimes awkward career path. 

I do this work because I want to share all the ways I am excited about language and communication. I love the making of poems. I love the ways people know each other and themselves better through the many masks poetry may wear in connecting with human understanding. How they discover and thrive in their own creation or comprehension. I find tremendous satisfaction in sharing this art that I adore, this way of engaging in life.

I love music. I like poems for that reason too. 

I am creating a patchwork quilt of work to sustain me, hoping I get through and build a stability once again. I am becoming more and more vigilant in my reaching out to readers and advocates.  There is work and I will find it. Or the people who will benefit from my perspective and my approach to learning and writing will find me. There is purpose in what I do, what Quraysh and I have created in our dialogue that became our book.

One of the unanticipated lessons in writing Our Difficult Sunlight has been discovering that I like to write prose. It is why I am offering more through the blog as well. I am a writer. This forum has become a consistent part of my practice. 

The other day, someone asked me how I had time to write if I am blogging regularly. I responded that this is writing. I also realized that I am just taking some time away from poetry. I value the quiet times. Like Saturday morning in the yard. A time for review and redefinition. A time for the fluster of a flock of powdery brown little budgies chasing to the far side of the street to perch on the church railing.

Besides, when the air smells like ice cubes melting on a countertop and the bird commentary echoes The View, I can retreat from the deadlines, the proposal concepts, snippets of poems, agendas, calendars, and urgent communication, the marketing plan, the storm in my brain. I can stop typing now to watch the daddylonglegs stroll the bind weed that has adopted my front railing. I can write. It is my passion, my entertainment, my art, my mission, it is my work. It is my identity. 

I have dug very deep to attain that knowledge. I vow again: Onward. As directed one New Year's by my dear friend Phil, Proceed and be bold. 

I can return to my pitchfork and weed weasel, as I am about to do.

I trust the work will come. I have many irons in the fire. I have been creating options and choices. Each time I have reached a roadblock, I have regrouped and charted an alternate course. I hope I am right. I would like to not struggle so much but that may be contrary to the dharma anyway, so I dig deep, loosen the tangle of overgrowth, listen to the devas as they help me design the planned community of my front garden, how the wind chime choruses their recommendations. It is all part of the revision process, the eternal thumb puzzle that is my life (to quote my friend Brian).

The Ever-Obvious Metaphors of Gardening

Last summer I spent a lot of time on my front porch where I could get wi-fi while I worked with Quraysh on Google Docs to get our book written. I generally am found on the deck in back. It was fortuitous because it was the last summer with my two guardian trees. With last summer's extreme heat and a pressing deadline for the manuscript completion, the garden was left to its own devices. I liken it to a teenager: it thinks it can take care of itself, and it can do okay, but sometimes Mom has to step in and put things in order. Well, Mom did not get to it in 2010.

Last fall I lost the two trees in front of my house because lingering disease was weakening them too much for safety. I called the city and the decision was made to euthanize them. In turn, this was the year to watch, to determine what I could plant that I have never been able to plant because the Norwegian Maple canopy afforded too little light.

As we all know, this has been a summer of extremes and my gardening effort is backlogged once again.This morning it was comparatively cool, dry, lovely. I forsook my morning journal practice to dig in the insane olio of intentional and unintentional overgrowth in my front yard.

I stuck my pitchfork into the soil to loosen a gnarl of plantain, dandelion, forget-me-not, and chicory. It seems that I disturbed a colony of those teeny red ants. I don't think they were ready for the surface, much less their home being destroyed. They swarmed in a frenzy, all over my feet, up my arms, all over the sidewalk. They bit me, leaving little red anthills all over my ankles and arms.

I saw a metaphor for so many human disruptions: the way a housing project will be emptied, such as Cabrini Green in Chicago, displacing a whole population in short shrift. Or the imminent domain backed by a wealthy real estate developer. Or a school community will be disrupted by the decisions of the school board without parent input. 

When we have no choice in the changes in our lives, we swarm and we bite. We have witnessed the swarm of teachers and union members in Wisconsin. Last year teachers marched in New Jersey as well. We witnessed students at Detroit's Catherine Ferguson Academy for Young Women sit in to protest closing of their school. We also witnessed some of those same young women arrested for their civil disobedience.

In the long run, we witnessed all that those young ladies and their teachers, their remarkable administrator as well, bring light to their ordeal and then sponsors to save the school, which is so much more than a school. It is the beginning of a new life.

The young women of Catherine Ferguson have quite a bite and now they will thrive for their feisty refusal to be dislodged. My ants may take their territory back as well.

No Crying in Baseball or Over Spilt Milk...

My week started with the disappointing news that I, among many who applied, did not receive a NY Foundation for the Arts Independent Artist Fellowship once again. I was so disappointed for any number of reasons and frustrations, not the least of which, the leg up that $7,000 of unrestricted funds would have provided at this point in my life. But the other significant disappointment was the artistic let-down, the competitive fear factor of not being "good enough" to warrant the award. That doubt preys at the back of my psyche, nagging in a raspy whisper, while logic attempts to talk louder, reminding of the crap shoot, the numbers game, and how many colleagues with bigger "names," tenure track teaching positions, and impressive publishing deals are also not receiving fellowships this round.

I indulged my perch on the pitty pot for about 24 hours of lingering pouts, several hours of really mourning the death of my hope. Then I got busy with next steps. 

It was still a productive week in moving forward. I have a support team of colleagues who believe in me and I am taking steps every day to push the course of my career and my writing along in a positive direction. I have concrete action items to complete as I strive for the national recognition of the work I do independent writer/educator, as well as a collaborator with Quraysh Ali Lansana and our work with Our Difficult Sunlight. I am blessed in countless ways to be surrounded by the astounding talent and generosity of my friends and colleagues; I search for ways that we can work together to support and foster each other's successes.

I also have skills to share. I teach workshops, I help friends edit their materials and creative expression, I connect people who need to know each other, according often to my intuition more than anything. In the dry time of summer for my work, I will likely have to turn these skills into temp work because the bill collectors don't care about my community networking.

The end of the week, when I was just about resolved to my fate of no fellowship, I received notice that I did not get the adjunct position I applied for, again a stretch and a hope in even applying. I indulged my place on the pitty pot again for about an hour, and now I am back at the next phase of "Okay, what next?" This is the resilience that is required of any independent artist, teaching artist, contractor, consultant, and/or entrepreneur.

This resilience is a necessary armor. And when all else fails, loud rock 'n roll and r & b from back in the day, ignoring the phone, avoiding any email or text message provide the rebound. Lou Reed says it best, "Some people like to go out dancing; there's other people like us, we gotta work...She started dancing to that fine, fine music; her life was saved by rock 'n' roll..."

Living through Shifts & Thank Goodness Mercury Retrograde Is Over!

I have been off the road for 3 weeks. During that time I have not only started teaching a new adult literature class at the Downtown Writer's Center in the PRO Certification thread, but I have been reconnecting with my own writing in conscious ways that I have not had time for in a long while.

The combination of prepping for the weekly discussions of the poets I have selected for my course and the ability to commit some time to poems is delightful. I am loving the intentional and detailed read of four unique collections of poetry. I am also quite consumed by two new poems of my own as I  allow them to evolve with tender prodding and constant review.

I am in love with revision work. That is the craft of writing to me. The first draft has everything to do with the poet's soul. The revision has to do with knowledge, intention, and ardent listening to the poem's request more than what the poet needs (or thinks is needed) from the poem. Each read, each word deleted or changed reveals more and more of the potential. It should not be hurried along. It should be understood. The poem actually knows what it wants. In our need to be done, to publish, to fulfill self-imposed quotas of work completed can sometimes overshadow the maturation process of a particular piece. Be prolific, yes, if it is the correct choice for the individual writer. Pushing a poem out the door before its own maturity is not necessarily wise.

What is the rush? 

The poem is what matters. Not its destination. Not the accolades. The poem and every word, every nuance, every caesura are what matters. As NC poet and educator Allan Wolf proclaimed in the early days of the Slam, "The points are not the point...The point is poetry." The implications of this statement stretch through all aspects of the poet's journey.

At some point, not too long after I returned to my identity as poet and discovered the Slam, I was struggling with my long-ingrained habit of writing poems that were strings (often long) of short lines, mostly four or five words, if that, trailing down the page. I suddenly became aware of all the space available on the page. The sculpture, the profile of the poem attracted my attention. This was when I started to employ visual punctuation rather than graphic, using negative space to create the pauses in thought and breath that are symbolized in the comma, period, semicolon, etc. I described it as being freed from the prison of the left margin.

As I became involved in Slamming, I had a profound opportunity to change, mostly driven by the need to fill 3 minutes. It takes a heck of a short poem to capture the judges. Once I found my way to what has become sort of a signature piece by being urged by my teammates to combine two related poems that ran a minute each, give or take a few seconds. The challenges of capturing all the shifts in performance were enough of an opportunity but then to determine how to use the page as an indicator was not actually solved until I was working with Kate Cahill, who designed my first book, Coaxing Nectar from Longing. Kate showed me ways of using the space on the page to visually chart the tonal changes. It was remarkable and the success on the page is due to her astute vision. I am ever grateful.

In the past couple of years, I have been involved in writing prose as I coauthored Our Difficult Sunlight with Quraysh Ali Lansana. This was a new venture in putting forth my thoughts in an articulation that would help those in the classroom connect with this art form. Added to the shift of consciousness as well as style/genre was the collaborative process we had embarked upon for this book.

I am driven by deadlines and I can produce under pressure. We produced a lot of words. In fact, we turned in one hundred pages more than the production budget would sustain or indulge. Most of the ranks were axed. This collaborative process was expanded as we took the completed first draft to our publisher and entered the peer review process. I realized that I had moved from a solitary endeavor, to a partnership, then to a team effort, each member bringing a set of expectations, understandings, requirements, and aesthetic imprints. At times these elements were opposed to each other. There was negotiation over every word in that book, one of the many reasons I am tremendously proud of Our Difficult Sunlight.

I have been self-conscious of the fact that my higher education is incomplete. Without the completion of even my BA, there have been walls I have never been able to surmount. Now I realize that I have done the same amount of work, just in a different arena. I have three degrees to validate that work, my three books. Coaxing Nectar from Longing was my BA. Eleven years later, I accomplished what I view as my Master's thesis, The Doom Weaver. Now, after more than 10 years of practical research, much reading, interviewing, and flying by the seat of my travel pants, I have completed a project that has been comparable to a Ph.D. with the dissertation to support the learning. With ODS, we underwent an extremely comprehensive peer review process before we agreed that the book was ready, with copious edits required after combing through the many comments and perspectives, the interpretations of not only what we had written but what we had articulated, or attempted to articulate. No vowel was left unturned.

And now the book is out. I feel what I can only  respond to as a mild post-partum depression but I can easily distract myself with various projects and deadlines, as well as all of the book promotion that we need to do.

In the past few weeks, I have been writing poems. They have been patient while they have been steeping in the back caves of my brain. The poems are surprisingly long. This is in part a natural direction based on the narrative that they are expressing and the form they have chosen, that of the letter. I have proven to myself a certain level of competency I have in prose and expository writing with the completion of ODS, as well as maintaining this blog, although I have a lot of freedom here, a great deal of autonomy. With the blog I can also address a more immediate output and thought process so I do not worry each word in the same way I do with my other writing.

There is another thing I have come to realize: through the immersion in prose, I now find that I have broken out of the prison of the 40-line poem. Sometimes a premise, the source of inspiration needs more than a single page. The same attention must be paid to each word as it earns its way into the whole, no matter the length.

I feel that I am maturing to meet my own expectation, if not exceed it. Transiting from teaching children and teens to working with adults is a considerable change in focus. I am loving digging in deeply to investigate pure craft-driven expressions. I will learn as much as my students but that is why I do what I do. I live my poet's life with a dread of complacency. I feel it is a sin for any artist to be complacent in their own work. But what is more important, I do live the adage "Teach what you want to learn."

And Now, Time for Some Poetry...

After being fully immersed for more than a year in drafting, crafting, thrashing, revamping, revising, and fine-tuning Our Difficult Sunlight, in general, I left poems by the wayside. I had initiated four cycles of poems, many of which will be united into book entities once the cycles are complete; however, once there was a contract with a hard deadline looming for the book project, it had to be a priority.

I found that I enjoy the process of writing prose as well. There is a very different experience with prose. For one thing, I do better at prose if I work directly on the keyboard. Poetry needs to first be drafted by hand. It has a delicate nature to me in that early stage. But prose is a streaming that allows me to rely on my nearly 15 years of clerical work and my role as a "document technician." In other words, I can type quickly and my fingers are more able to keep up with my thinking on the keyboard for the prosaic expression, just as it is now...as I blog these thoughts.

Also, I am accustomed to the concise form of a poem as I have held in my view for many years. Having developed the habit of keeping poems to a single page, and particularly to 40 lines or less, since many literary journals ask for that length to fit their magazine size and limits, essays give me a range to investigate and postulate. I am able to develop a thought in a much different manner, which entails more words.

So the poems were stalemated. The words were still flowing...and gushing...and flooding. Then the project was complete, the edits (many, many slash-and-burn trips through the manuscript) accomplished, and the book is now heading into print in its final and, hopefully, blemishless form.

A few weeks ago, I was traveling back home from Chicago and the first launch events for ODS. The book launch itself was heartwarming and it was wonderful to be welcomed into the community of artists, writers, students, and educators that embraces Quraysh and the work he does. The in-service workshop was profound as well, as the very diverse group that attended worked together to meet a common goal of deepening their already rich connection to poetry in ways that will support their own teaching in whatever setting they work.

As I waited for my flight, my pen was demanding attention. I opened my journal for the usual rundown of activities and emotions that fill volume after volume of these little books charting my moods and movement through life. Instead, a voice started narrating a perspective on a tale that was fairly new to me, shared by my mother's cousin at a family gathering this past summer. The voice continued through the waiting, and once we boarded, the voice started up again. My fingers transcribed as quickly as possible for the first part of the flight. Then I needed a nap so I closed the journal for a little while.

There was a brief layover in Philadelphia, when the voice completed her story. I was amazed at how seemlessly it all unfolded.

As soon as I could, which turned out to be a couple of days later due to the insane pace of my life the first quarter of 2011, I typed up that rendering, starting the whittling and tweaking that I love so much. The poem's second draft was two and a half pages! I was shocked.

I worked that poem and returned to a draft from the summer that was buried in the last volume of my journal. Once typed, it was two pages long as well.

Then, prompted by Jennifer Pashley after she read the first of these pieces, I have drafted a third poem, almost four full pages long.

I have clearly broken some barrier within myself. I attribute the new work and the length that these poems are striving towards as the response to all the expository writing I have done over two years. It took that third poem to cause me to examine the trend and draw the correlation.

After a brief moment of celebration that the poems were happening again, I started to panic. Who will publish these? They are so long! I don't know where the market will be for these pieces. What am I going to do with them?!

After indulging myself for a brief span of time, reason resounded, "Just write them, dammit."

I collected myself and developed a level of clarity I have not had in a long time. The important issue is that I am writing, and that I am producing poems. I need to be concerned with these poems first and foremost. Identifying a home in print is entirely secondary to the work at hand, rather than being my motivator. If I am diligent and astute enough, the poems will find homes. Right now, it is the poem that is important, not the repository for it. That will be determined at a later date. I can liken it to the parents who are researching colleges while their children are cutting their first teeth. Revel in the fact that poems are emerging. That is cause for celebration and massive word play of its own accord.