Where We Are Right Now

Snowed in, that's where. Luckily this storm hasn't taken out our power yet, but given it's done this in only a few hours, I suspect we might be going pre-Edison at some point. Hope you are warm and safe wherever you are, and that you have some good books and flashlights and warm clothes and something good to drink.

So a funny thing happened on the way to my blog...

Okay. It has been a little crazy and yes, I suppose I have been lazy but well, if it is between posting stuff here and trying to get some work on one of three books I have in progress or working on reviews and posts for Green Spot Blue, or most importantly, spending time with our four growing and incredibly wonderful young kids, then well my own blog loses out.

But as I have had a couple of things happen lately, I thought I would go ahead and update this. Who knows, I might even keep up with new posts here.

First, the excellent folks at Dzanc Books have reissued my collection Seasons Smooth & Unperplext as an ebook. It looks great and I am so grateful to them for the excellent work they have done.

Secondly, I have a new post up on riffraf.net, in their Writers & Music series, "The Shaping Sounds", which is a reflection on the role music has played in my writing.

Check them out. And if you are one of the five people to have somehow stumbled on this site, welcome, and do come back. I can't promise their will be loads of new stuff, but I have been know to break promises so you never know.

Get Out From The Blue Plate

Too often feels like I'm behind a blue plastic plate of procrastination. If you've been feeling the same way and want to do something with your writing, send it our way for Green Spot Blue.

Send submissions of fiction, poetry & creative nonfiction to hkrw@greenspotblue.com

Absent But Not Silent

So I just realized I have not posted here since September. Not exactly
the frequency I had been hoping for or expected. Well maybe expected
but definitely not desired.

What happened then? I have been using most of my nonwork, nonchild-
rearing time to write: either haphazardly chiseling away at novels and
long poems like sculpting marble blocks with a thumbtack; or writing
reviews or editing others for a site born of the conviction we could
provide something unique and if you take a look at http://www.greenspotblue.com
you can judge how we are doing.

I'm proud of the work we've done so far (how many other webzines are
serializing novels) and just hope now we can continue to grow it with
even more writers and readers.

Bruising Punctures & Soothing Pacifiers

So this morning as my youngest son sat in my lap & I hugged him close
& held his left arm still so the phlebotomist could find a vein &
slide the needle in to draw blood for his lead test (hopefully the
worst present turning 2 ever earns you), I thought of those things
earned by experience...or to paraphrase one of my favorite rock
lyrics, your scars make you who you are, which is from a Tinsel song
(an indie band I used to love to see from my younger days in Chapel
Hill).

These thoughts that ran thru me while restraining & reassuring him led
me to consider the poetics of suffering & happiness, or I suppose,
suffering versus happiness as influence on creativity, &
penultimately, to wonder whether I had any recall of a poet or writer
whose work I was drawn to, who had a happier outlook or slant. & aside
from Seuss and some Taoist dialogues from the T'ang dynasty with wise
& playful monks, I could call to mind no others.

All of which led me to ponder whether great writing could occur amid
happiness. This is not to say that I believe no great work can be born
out of joy, or that only mining the depths of personal sorrow is
required tho some writers have obviously (maybe subconsciously) needed
to manufacture a drama in their life in order to achieve the necessary
mental state for creation. But these few are certainly not the mean or
average. I suspect that in most writers a sort of seasonal
meloncholia, based on the transition from one season to the other or
based on the characteristics found in the heart of one, such as Wolfe
and his October (which if you have ever seen North Carolina in the
fall you would understand as it is a time of true beauty but with an
underlying sadness as winter approaches steadily and more prominently
as October fades).

& then, it was over. The vials filled. A pacifier normally sequestered
to the bedroom soothed him physically, a bag of juice treats in his
hand promised some pleasure down the road, & his daddy letting him
press the elevator buttons assured him that as young as he was, as
powerless as he is now, he will grow into greater things & tho the
world includes a great measure of suffering, it does not lack for
great, if not greater, amounts of happiness.

Sent from my iPod

Dramatic Monologues

While I like Robert Browning fine, I think the genre of dramatic monologues in poetry has never really been the same since poems by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot shook out the dust from the genre, and then of course John Berryman, who happened to create a tripartite monologue in the Dreamsongs (despite having three "speakers", I think we can still consider it a dramatic monologue since each speaker is the same person and I don't mean the poet).

For A Late June Sunday With Gray Sky

So presuming you don't have four kids and lots to do on a lazy gray late June Sunday, you might consider trying out some of these poetry podcasts I've found lately; one site being the Poetry Foundation site (also available for free from itunes) and specifically for me I found one of Paul Muldoon reading his poems and talking about them. Then from PennSound (also available at itunes for free), an amazing find, John Ashbery actually explicating his poems.

And well, should you have four kids 5 and under like we do, then you have a whole different order of fun in store for your Sunday.