Notes Concering the Mid-February Blues

'Tis true, those blues just keep a rolling. For such a short month, the greyness of days certainly seems to really stretch out those 28 days into an immeasurable chasm of general blahness. The whole body seems lathargic, just waiting for glorious thing to happen at some later date. Perhaps the one motioned to by the arrival of sun. All minor complaints given the current status of countless other people in the country.

I've been slaving away inside over these past few weeks trying to finish up the first workshop story for the semester. What's come is a monster, my longest complete piece to date, a 6100 word monster set in Bozeman, MT. The funny thing is that after I fashion the final, and rather short scene earlier today, I clearly felt a weight lift. I was starting to have dreams about my characters. I was becoming concerned for my sanity and perception of reality. Hopefully, with the completion of the manuscript for "Light Upon the Bridgers" will put myself back in the midst of the insanity of my own dreams.

I have been reading way too many form of poetry books recently. I tore through Robert Hayden's Collected Prose book last week. I'll post an in depth review once things slow up around here. I just started Nims Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. I can and must tell that is a must have book even thus far into it. Again, I will post more on it in the next weeks. It really seems as though it is a brilliant catch all for poetics and questions around composition.

Lastly, for something of just pure fun check out the New Michigan Press for there most recent chapbooks. They are all beautifully designed and are available on Amazon. For the more ridiculous to look at and maybe even purchase (I'm really thinking about it) look at the bottom of this t-shirt list at MFA t-shirts. How cool are these? http://newmichiganpress.com/nmp/tshirts.html