So much to say, So little time.

While this is of course the problem of every writer, it is my specific problem this week. I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about poetics and aesthetics, about how I ended up writing the way that I do, and why so much of my critical work points towards elegy & mourning. I thought I was a happy person. Yet, recent drafts have included a stoning poem and two lynching poems; two are set in recent day Sadr City, and one in St. Louis. in the 1917's. For me, sometimes writing is trying to make sense of the world, and sometimes it's trying to makes sense of the self. I state these as two different goals, but I wonder if they're not really the same.

Much better than listening to my mumbling: stop in and read Scoplaw's poem To My Former Protégé. Then if you're in the St. Paul area, go hear Steve Mueske read on St. Paddy's Day.