January

Some people like to escape January in Minnesota. I'll admit it sounds attractive, in the midst of the third-snowiest winter on record. But there is a quiet in January that draws me, even as I wait for the birds' pineal glands to tell them the sun is coming back. Something about a persistent light snowfall, carrying on from one day to the next, erasing what it can.

New Book Coming in 2012

My manuscript "Meridian" won the 2010 Snowbound Poetry Chapbook Prize from Tupelo Press, judged by Patricia Fargnoli. The book will be published some time in 2012. I haven't heard a firm date, yet. (At the pace that poetry gets published, I often wonder if many poets can only hope to be published posthumously.)

It's wonderful to have a book coming. There is a sense of anticipation, as if the creative work is not quite completed, because the book design, the words on the cover, the image all need to be put in place for the finished product to become a book. The hard part--the writing--is done, though, and what comes next is just for pleasure. I used to think that publishing a book was going to change my life in some large way, but now I am happy with the quiet, subtle change that occurs when one's creative effort enters into the world. Someone will read it, and that is such a lovely thing.