Goodbye, 2007

I’m not one for big year-end lists, full of sentimentality and memories and whatnot. Actually, I love reading them–I’d wanted to put together a top-ten list of my favorite top-ten lists from the end of the year–but I just don’t have the time or the energy and I’m sure to leave something out.

So, inspired by Jack’s latest post, I’ll confine this to a brief summary of my current writing projects and plans for the immediate future. The project that’s consumed me for most of the past year has been the completion of my thesis manuscript.

The idea for the whole thing began last spring with Tina and I being woken up one night by a strange sound. The sound–a kind a scratchy whine–revisited us periodically, off and on, for many nights, though we were never able to figure out exactly where it originated from or what was making it. In describing it I began writing a letter, borrowing the form and character names from Nathaniel Mackey‘s From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. I realized that I could write a series of such letters, interspersing them with the poems I had already written and would write.

That was the germ of the project, but I’ve encountered many obstacles and changed direction many times. Most recently, I scrapped all the letters I had written up through the fall and started that part completely over. The main reason for this was an effort to solve the largest problem the project presented–that is, how to incorporate the poems with the letters in a way that made sense or at least fit. There were also conversations that Steve and I were having about epistolary fiction, fueled by the surprisingly large number of books on the subject.

Since that time, the work’s gone more smoothly, but slowly… A lot of work goes into each letter. But I guess that’s how it should be. The poetry, of course, is a completely different animal, but still a great deal of work. It’s work that I’m happy to be doing, and grateful to have the time to be doing. Still, there are days when I’d rather be watching a 24 marathon on WGN.

I’ve started sending work out again, too, but I’m not paying any attention to the prestige factor of the journals. Mostly I’m sending to journals I have some affinity with or feel my work fits with, and trusting that, should they choose to publish something, the right readers will encounter it. I think that’s about all any of us can ask for. Sure, there are some mags I’d really like to be in, and I’ll probably keep hammering away at those. But in the long run, I don’t really see the difference between publishing something in The New Yorker or in John’s Big Pants Webzine. It has nothing to do with the work.

Aside from that, I’ve still a big stack of books and mags that Rich and others were kind enough to give me last month, along with some I’ve recently ordered, and I want to read through those and hopefully note my thoughts on them here. Then there’s finishing the construction of Ovid books with Micah, and getting those out, along with the 2nd issue of kadar koli, and preparing to publish the 3rd. That’s enough, I think…

Happy new year, everyone.