Announce

I guess the green light has been given, and there is no more speculation, there are no more contracts, and as far as the first book goes, I thankfully do not have to send any future checks out for contest fees. I guess I can go ahead and put the future cash from the what-would've-been-how-many-more-years-of-contest-fees-for-the-first-book fund into the second book (which is not imminent, of course) fund. For that, I am beyond extremely grateful.

And I can now officially say that Ghost Lights, a finalist for the 2008 Orphic Prize, will be published by Dream Horse Press in 2010.

I'm very excited for many reasons. In addition to that finalist nod, I came in third place overall at New Issues this year. Because they only had the money to publish the winner and runner-up, I wasn't offered publication. I was also a finalist for the Crab Orchard Open Competition, but the judge didn't pick my book. Seven finalist nods in less than two years was many more than I had anticipated or hoped for from the start.

So when J.P Dancing Bear offered me publication, I knew I would be crazy not to accept. Lisa Lewis's third book is coming out imminently, and there are two other finalists, in addition to the winner, Kyle McCord, who I've very excited to share a press with. Not to mention all the other great books he's published over the last few years. I think there are nothing but good things in the future at Dream Horse Press.

In a few hours I'll be teaching my last class ever at VCU. On Wednesday I collect their essays.

Because I know, however, that it will be at least a year until Ghost Lights is published and in real hands, I'm already planning on going to the post office tomorrow to send out more poem submissions for manuscript number two. Poetic rest is for the weak. And if in a few weeks we're all dead from this mysterious swine flu, I'll at least be happy about what I accomplished up until this point in my life.

But if the swine flu doesn't kill us all, don't think I'm not going to keep on trying my best to make my presence known.

Almost Halloween

Thanks to Carolyn Kellogg for the shout out in the Jacket Copy blog from the LA Times about the first book interviews.

As I said from the beginning, I'm hoping there's enough interest in this for the word to spread as more people find out about it, both at Kate's site and my continuation of it, without me having to spam people or make a Facebook group and bombard people that way for others to go to it.

Not only that, but I found out about Kate's interviews when she had already conducted around forty or so. You can image how thrilled I was when I had all that reading material to go back to in the archives.

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Took the GRE Lit Subject Test finally last Saturday. I always find the process and the dynamic so interesting and weird with these tests. We were in a room I've probably taught in before in the new VCU Business Building, and there were maybe 20-25 of us. Most were taking tests like Biology or Physics, and only a few were taking the Lit Subject Test. I wondered how everyone's future would go, how far some of them drove for a test, what everyone's reasons were for taking it, whatever the subject was.

There were a decent amount of questions I knew. Per the ETS policy, I shall not speak of such specifics regarding those questions here, but many of the everyone-talks-about-this-writer-or-this-poem-being-on-the-test folks were indeed on the test in some fashion. Either way, now I can focus on applications and the rest of the application process. High five for no more standardized tests. Borat style.

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The new Helios record, Caesura, and the new Near the Parenthesis record, L'Eixample, may just end up being at the top of my year-end best-of list.

Beautiful stuff all around, and perfect for the fall. Both of these guys have such a knack for writing gorgeous music, and though sometimes (in the best possible way) a band like Hammock can be sleep-inducing, there's usually more bass and background keyboards and computerized drums and drum machines and percussion sounds like that to make it listenable in so many environments. Reading, writing, road trip. But I think these records coming out in the fall months are melding into some ineffably perfect soundtrack for me.

They'll be getting a ton of plays as the months go on, and you should do your favor and check them out.

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There are a few manuscript contests coming up that call for about ten more pages than I have for the minimum to be considered. It's weird to beef it up for contests now that I trimmed so much off. Like putting deleted scenes back into a movie once you've already cut what you deem as the final print.

But I'm trying to figure out what I can put back in, since I really haven't written or published much new stuff that would fit with the first manuscript. Many poems have come and gone, as they do with the manuscript process, so I don't feel like the poems necessarily don't belong again, but it's just an odd feeling: putting poems back in when you haven't seen them for so long. Maybe some of them will make a case for a permanent stay. I'm not sure yet.

Ballast

When I saw a still from Ballast as one of the Sundance movies a year or two ago, I thought it was striking. When I found out more about it, I was even more excited.

The trailer was finally put up a few days ago, and immediately after seeing it, just the trailer, my thought was, "I really can't see how this won't be making an appearance on my favorite 100 movies list once the next one is constructed."

Immediately many directors came to mind: The Dardenne Brothers, David Gordon Green, Terrence Malick, Charles Burnett, Ed Radtke, and Lynne Ramsay. If that's not worthy of jaw-dropping awe, then I don't know what is.

The movie opens in New York October 1st, so if you live there, see it. And if you see it, you should let me know about it.

Can't wait until I do.

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In a post titled "The Good, the bad, the numbers," Leslie Harrison talks about some interesting manuscript-related things, most which seem important, at least to me.

Here's one of the excerpts:

Number of contests this manuscript got sent to: 6.
Number of years I worked on this ms before sending it anywhere: 8.
Number of poems from this ms published in journals prior to its winning: Umm, maybe 8.

The second and third lines of that are very good to know, mainly the fact that she worked on it for eight years before it was sent out. I thought about my own, and I realized that technically it's been worked on for about two years, mainly because even the published poems -- almost every single one I think -- I wrote my first two years of my MFA either weren't good enough, or they didn't fit, or were never a part of the manuscript from the beginning.

That said, and as I've said before, I think it's ready to go now. Every unsigned "Dear Poet, this manuscript blows. Enclosed are the ashes left from the fire in the bucket we used to burn it." I'm kidding of course, and the great thing about rejections are they push you to make a better manuscript, or better poems. That's what every one did for mine. Without them, and without having sent it out to all those contests, I wouldn't have been as furious when it came to changing things.

I also feel like I could spend another X amount of years on it, and it wouldn't change much at all. Another good sign I hope that it's legitimately ready. It's a book now. It wasn't when it was getting the few placing nods it got about a year ago, and still, the fact that it was placing also made me work harder. And even though I'm sending it out, it may take another five years. I really hope it doesn't, but be that as it may, I'm still trying to work on new stuff and get away from a lot of the types of poems that comprise GHOST LIGHTS.

But I think it's important for folks like myself to look at the time Leslie spent on her manuscript. In the world of tons of new journals and MFA programs now, don't tell me that there aren't those racing to get a career and put a book out. Then again, it's probably been like that for a while. Yet there are also folks that are making sure there book is as solid as it can be before they send it out. Giving. It. Time. I did things differently, and we all do, but I always like hearing things like that -- and find them kind of fascinating, because I'm more of a nerd probably than I'd like to admit -- in blog posts from poets.

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Since there's going to be a July wedding in 2009 for Jess and myself, we're trying to get as much clutter out of already fairly clutter-free apartment, even though Jess would probably complain that it's all my stuff comprising the clutter. Moving's going to be a bitch anyway, but trying to do some things now will save a lot of hassle.

One of the most contributing factors is the amount of paper journals and magazines I have.

When I first got to Richmond I decided that if I was going to try to publish poems, I should buy some subscriptions to journals. This was a great idea, and a very helpful and instructional one. However, after a few years, they added up, since most of them are thicker and wider than actual books. Not to mention the small stack I have going of issues I'm appearing in. I'm not Bob Hicok, so I don't have many to speak of, but hopefully the list keeps growing as the years go on.

My question is: What's the proper way to get rid of them? I don't want to throw them out, but there are too many to keep and have around, especially since I won't be returning to almost all of them. I think they could help folks who are curious about publishing, since the reason I did get all the subscriptions was to not only read them, but to see what they looked like, how they felt in my hand, what kind of covers they had, and of course what they were publishing to see if I had a chance to get in there with my own work.

Like I said: I don't want to throw them away, but I want to make sure they're going to go somewhere people will have access to them, either by reading them or taking them for free. I'm done with them, and even though they're a few years old, they're still good for reference at the very least I'd imagine, and in many cases the journals have the same editors and aesthetic.

Let me know if you know what would be a good idea, or if you have experience with this. I don't need money for them and don't expect it, but "donating" doesn't always translate into something that makes people happy. Meaning: I want them to be used, for whatever reason, by people. Not get taken as a donation and thrown in the back alley for the garbage truck to collect, when I could've done that myself.

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It was Finland's second school massacre in less than a year and the two attacks had eerie similarities. Both gunmen posted violent clips on YouTube prior to the massacres, both were fascinated by the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado, both attacked their own schools and both died after shooting themselves in the head.

I still can't believe things happen like this. I almost can't comprehend it. Like everything occurred in a language I will never understand.

Eclipse

It's been a sad week for the writing world. Reginald Shepherd recently passed away, and David Foster Wallace committed suicide. I'm of course familiar with both writers, but probably like many, I couldn't get through INFINITE JEST. I tried to read it when I was 16 or 17, though, so that may be reason. That monolith is still sitting in my closet back home, so again, like many, it's on my list to perhaps begin again, give it another go.

Reginald Shepherd was known to a lot of folks from his blog. What's fascinating to me about blogs and the perpetual notion of one finding their place on the vast Internet is Reginald's last blog post. It's somehow sad, beautiful, inspiring, triumphant, all in one. I've been familiar with his work, but I need to read more, and of course after anyone has passed away, it's impossible to read their work with that in mind, for better or for worse.

Both writers will be missed very much, and my condolences go out to their families and many many fans of their work.

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On a calmer note, i got my contributor copies of Eclipse today. I got the acceptance late October 2007, never had any contact with the editors (aside from the snail mail acceptance), and only sent an email of the bio and electronic copies of the poems to an email address at the college, who I assumed was doing the layout or was the magazine editor.

And about 11 months later, here are the contributor copies. Obviously they have their shit together, because the journal looks really nice, and I had to have little to no contact with the editors, something that sometimes makes me a little freaked out for what the final product's going to like like, but alas.
The cover painting is quite pretty, a railroad trestle drenched in background pastels. The journal is over 200 pages (they only do one fall issue a year), and some of the contributors include George Looney. William Greenway, Holaday Mason, Paul Hostovsky, and Charles Harper Webb. Check out the website and submit.

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Heard from some others (mostly via blogs) that they also have their first books floating around for contests too. I just sent my first fall batch out a few days ago, with a second, bigger batch going out probably around the middle of October.

Sending my manuscript out this time, however, I was hit with another question that I never really considered: How many pages of actual poetry is my manuscript?

I asked because some of the contests were not 48-80 pages, but 50-80 pages, not including front and back matter, section breaks, end-notes, etc. -- actual poetry means actual poetry.

I counted, and luckily I'm right on the cusp at 51 pages of actual poetry, which to me is the perfect length for my manuscript. I've cut a lot of poems in the past year, and at one point I had the page count -- including all of the aforementioned "not to include" things -- at 68, which was way too long. I started to realize that length for me was a huge factor, since I do have many poems that are two pages long, which means the screener / reader / peruser's going to have to have double the patience as a one-page poem a decent number of times while reading my manuscript. I do believe the poems have a place in there, but making it as tight and cohesive as I can get it has been on the forefront of its revision and subsequent reconstruction for a long time.

That said, what if someone sends a manuscript that's 46 pages? 47 pages? 48 pages? When it needs to be 50? Is their check cashed but they're disqualified? Does the press send the check back to them and not consider the book? If it doesn't adhere exactly to the guidelines but is powerful enough and ends up being deemed the winner, is that revoked after the revealing of the non-guidelines-adhering smaller page count?

A rule's a rule, just like sending to single journals. If they accept simultaneous submissions and want notification too, you should notify them. If they don't accept simultaneous submissions, don't send if you are sending that batch to other journals (though I know many, many people who submit the same batch to journals who ask for no simultaneous submissions). There are perhaps rules that can be broken with journals, someone sending six poems instead of five, and the journal liking the sixth so much to take it. I'm sure that happens.

But are these manuscript contests and presses more rigorous? Can anyone speak about their experience with this as a screener or editor or publisher? I'm all about following the rules, but you wonder how many people have shorter or longer manuscripts that "required," and who does it accidentally, who does it hoping their breaking of the rules might not be noticed, etc. The season is upon us, so I suppose if I'm not over thinking this or being overly concerned, then it is something valid to think about and question.

Saturday City

Alas, the Giants were victorious. I love Eli. I will always love Eli. I know many people have a problem with that. If you're one of those folks, you can eat it. We didn't look great in the second half, but as I've discussed with others, I think our core is very strong. Despite the fact that we're not made up of superstars, we're going to be a contender this year. Can't wait for next Sunday already.

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Sent poems out on Thursday to a bunch of places. If I get a few hits I wouldn't be surprised, but I also wouldn't be surprised if every place said no. They're weird poems, even for me I suppose. Maybe someone will dig 'em.

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Like others, I'm gearing up for fall contests. Scanning others' blogs, and knowing how good some of those first books are going to be, I feel less confident, but then again, after working on this sucker for a year, and going through many drafts, and like everyone else, taking out poems, changing sections, giving it a new title, there's no reason I shouldn't be confident. As always, I'm not holding my breath, but many contests will be seeing it, whether they like it or not.

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Kabluey isn't out on DVD yet, but I downloaded a rip of it and was kind of blown away. Scott Prendergast didn't only write it, direct it, and star in it, but he managed to make a pretty original and touching comedy, with many legitimate laugh-out-loud moments. I could see how Salman's kind of saccharine and bumbling aloofness could get people very sick of the movie very quickly, but I loved the world he created. In the scope of movies now everyone's clamoring for something original, and to me, this really was. Many fine moments, and it may end up being one of my favorites of the year. You should check it out.

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The new Kings of Leon, "Only by the Night," finally leaked, and I don't know after a few listens. It has more melody, and like my brother Eric was saying, he's worried about the moments where the rhythm section goes all out, and there are certainly those moments, but it does have more of a modern arena rock feel. Still, I love pretty music, I always have, and I always will. So I'm digging the melody, but it'll be interesting to see what happens with it.

Other records I've been listening to and digging:

Jeff Hanson - "Madam Owl"
Don Caballero - "Punkgasm"
Mogwai - "The Hawk is Howling"
Max Tundra - "Parallax Error Beheads You"
NOMO - "Ghost Rock"
Stereolab - "Chemical Chords"
The American Dollar - "A Memory Stream"
The Gutter Twins - "Adorata"
The Broken West - "Now or Heaven"

Lots of good stuff has come out lately, or is still officially coming out, and there's still a few months to go in the year. Hammock, The Silent Years, and Girl Talk will most likely make an appearance on the ol' top ten list at the end of the year, but I'm not sure who else will be on there yet.

Ra Ra Riot

The new Ra Ra Riot record leaked, and though I always say it and never do it, I hope to actually purchase it, because it's great. The most unfortunate thing that I have to get used to is the production, as the rawness from the EP seems to be absent, and "Each Year" doesn't have the beautiful string flourishes in the end like it used to.

Also, most of the tracks from the EP are on the record, so there aren't as many new cuts as I'd hoped.

Handsome is publishing my poem later in the year (or at the beginning of next year?) of the weird elegy I wrote for John Pike, their drummer who died last summer. I still find it weird that I had to see an article about his death on Pitchfork to find out about the band, which guilted me into writing the initial draft of the poem.

It's a solid record, though. I don't know if I'd quite call them chamber punk, since they don't shy away from melody, but the strings add so much that an extra guitar couldn't.

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Season 3 of Entourage is On Demand via Comcast, and I devoured most of the season last night (and have spent much time rewatching On Demand episodes from all the seasons). I can't wait for Season 5. I suck and read some spoilers, and if they're right, it's going to be a pretty wild season.

Thank God it's returning. Can you really leave Medillin to the one-dollar purchase of Harvey, while Drama's banging some Viking Quest obsessed fan on the beach?

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Since none of my students came to visit me in my office yesterday, I spent about three hours searching for more contests to send to. I made a good dent, and there are many I was unsure of, since I didn't recognize the names of winners or published books. But the list is growing. I'm ready for the fall and winter, and I started my 2009 list of contests already too.

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I already got in touch with some folks about the first book interviews, and it seems like they're down. I hope to talk to some people on their second or third books in addition to those who have only first books. I think it'd be interesting to gain some perspective on how things have changed at least over the last few years. More on this later.

Mondayness

I'm in my office in the Hibbs Building, which is why I'm able to use the caps lock key, which is nice. A friend who works at Richmond's local Mac store said I could switch keyboards with hopefully a working one, which I'm going to try and do tomorrow.

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Had a good weekend with Corey and Sarah visiting. Richmond's a crazy place, and I hope they enjoyed it. We hope to hit some more sites and such next time instead of just Hollywood Cemetery and in and around The Fan.

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Mary Biddinger apparently is starting some posts about first books. I have to say I'm disillusioned with everyone's opinions about it all, meaning with things like that. As I've said in a past post, I've learned more from Kate Greenstreet's interviews on her site. What better than to hear from actual poets who went through it with their own experiences? So much is hysterical, though. Using different clips, and thicker paper, and different fonts. If your book sucks monumentally, it ain't gonna get published. If it's worth publication, then hopefully you're not sending a manuscript bound with a 4x6 Clifford the Big Red Dog Clip in 16-font Palantino on a ream of paper that cost you $50. And I love advice from people who think they're "editors" because they run an online "journal" mainly filled with other poet bloggers who they became friends with so they could solicit them. OK, there are only a few of these folks, but they make me want to switch to fiction sometimes. Still, discussing this stuff I think can be a good thing, even though a lot of it leaves me confused, and annoyed, and sometimes sad.

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Sometimes when I'm teaching I picture Matthew Broderick's Jim McAllister in Election, wearing a different shirt and different tie everyday, but saying the same things, essentially: "Legislative, Executive, Judicial.." "Judicial, Executive, Legislative..." "Executive, Legislative, Judicial..." -- standing somewhere slightly different by the board. Putting a different spin on it. But essentially saying the same thing, and wondering how many students are actually listening or getting anything from it. I do like teaching, especially when someone writes a really great and original and professional argumentative essay (when involving teaching composition of course), but I do hope to try and teach creative writing, and be good at it. No offense to anyone doing such a thing, the adjunct thing, the teaching comp thing, but if I'm doing what I'm doing now in 10 years when I'm 36, I'll be thinking of ways to drive my car off a cliff and make it look like an accident. Maybe I have it too easy, but I'm hoping for big things ahead, and am pushing myself as much as possible toward those goals.

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I'm hoping, after the 4th, to start getting a kind of spreadsheet going for the Ph.D information. Most likely we'll be some place close to home, the western PA, Pittsburgh area, though this can vary I suppose if a school in the Midwest wants to give me a fellowship and a 1/1 teaching load. Doubtful, yes, but if it happens who knows what direction we'll be moving toward. I know the process is going to suck, but I'm dying without a community, without reading for pleasure amidst criticism, without writing papers and exploring the many aspects and parts of the craft I have yet to discover and learn about. It's time.

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The new Ninth Letter is out. It's a great issue. Lots of good stuff so far I've read, and still a ton to go through. I'm so happy to have been a part of the last issue, and I hope in the future I don't get as many rejections as I had anticipated by the time I got the acceptance after only one rejection. I really don't think any magazine compares to, especially solely in the graphics and design. It smells like freshly wallpapered room, it weighs a ton, most of the work is of high quality in every issue (of course no one's going to like every piece in an issue of a journal or magazine). If you put it up to The Paris Review, or anything else for that matter, it's pretty laughable how much it kicks ass. I have one more issue in my contributor subscription, but I'll most likely keep subscribing.

The Post Where the Author Thinks They Know Something About Sending First Books Out (Or: Keith Writing a Really Long Post About Such Things)

I may still not know a lot, but I've had a lot of experience over the last year. I really wanted to write this post because of Sarabande's response to the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, which I got sometime last week.

When I was writing poems and getting my MFA for three years, ending May 2007, I didn't really know I was constructing a book. There are some students that write hardly any poems for whatever reason: they're shy, uncomfortable, some kind of minority and all kinds of stigma going along with that mixed with fear of course or that no one will care, are too busy drinking, are getting used to a new city, are newly married or not newly married and can't find enough time as they'd like to write. The list of excuses goes on and on. Some write few. Some write a poem a week and end up throwing out 75% or more.

I didn't know what I was doing when I got to VCU, and I'm not sure I still do, but again, I'm learning. I always asked people how to get stuff published, how to write cover letters, what to say. All of that. I spent a few hundred dollars on journal and magazine subscriptions to hold them in my hands, write down names of authors I liked, stack them on the bookshelf, see if I'd return to them. And when I thought I had work ready, I sent out. I send out a lot when I have work. To many places. If I believe the poems are good enough to be published and I'm happy with them, off into the world they go. Blitzkrieg. Carpet bombing. Whatever you want to call it. When a rejection comes, I add the name to the ongoing list and make sure to send them different work in, say, October, or March, or both.

But again, that brings me to the first book contests. I've been sending out my manuscript officially for a year, or it will be a year in about 10 days. I've sent the manuscript out to over 40 contests, and it's already cost me at least $1000. The first time I sent it out -- and of course it's changed a lot since then, as they always do if you take them as seriously as you say you do -- I was a Finalist for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. I was a bit baffled because the manuscript was essentially my thesis with a few (some still included) poems I wrote in the beginning of summer / late spring after I graduated. I was encouraged by both friends and professors, had the extra cash to do it, and figured I should start, especially if I had confidence in the book, which I did, somewhat I suppose.

I'm not sure if it was a good or bad thing that I was a Finalist so early, but it did spur me to get a little nuts about sending the book out. Researching presses and past winners and past published books. Staying away from presses like Ahsahta and Nightboat since my writing is nowhere near what they're looking for, and staying away from presses that also have journals that have never liked my work enough to give me ink, much less publish. For example: The Journal, Pleiades, Barrow Street all have contests related to their magazine. I've gotten ink from Pleiades once, and every other rejection from all 3 have been form, at best. So why would I sent my first manuscript -- poems that have since been published all crossing their paths in the past -- to a place that has rejected me every time? Chances are my work's not right for a book if single poems aren't right for the magazines. Is it a guarantee that my book's not going to be picked if that happens? No. Is it smart, however, to send to those places? Probably not the smartest idea, no. But to try it just once and see what happens? Maybe.

The second interesting thing is the judging. Now Lynn Emanuel was the judge of the Crab Orchard prize last year. She saw my manuscript. Didn't like it enough to publish it, for whatever reason, since there could only be one. And that's that. So chances are, if I see her name again as a revealed judge, knowing she already rejected my manuscript once, maybe I shouldn't send to that contest. That brings me to back to the Kathryn A. Morton Prize.

I saw that Lynn Emanuel was the judge. However, I love many of Sarabande's books, not to mention they're a quality press, with both look and content regarding their books. I found out before I got the notice that Karyna McGlynn won, which was no surprise. I think she's been a Finalist for some other contests, and she's published (a lot) in amazing places. Usually with such a ubiquitously presented writer in just a few years, the time is soon for their book to be published. So that's why I sent. I didn't place, but I did get the "Dear Poet" notice with poet crossed off in place of "Dear Keith," and at the end "Please try us again next year!" was written. That's where I'm confused.

Call me a questioner, but did they do that for everyone? Poets who've gotten rejections back from Mid-American Review (every one of my submissions) I imagine know the little smiley face that Karen Craigo puts on all the rejections. Ink does not always equal a great thing, is I guess what I'm saying. Better than nothing, yes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had a discussion about this.

But should I send to the Morton Prize again, I'm thinking. If they really mean they liked my work, by the little scribble of green marker, without any kind of place or bid, then sure, I'll send again. But if that was their plan to write that on every submitter's, then that just kind of sucks and is really unnecessarily misleading.

And again, with the judges, a friend of mine, who's book's finally getting published after being a finalist and semi-finalist over 10 times in contests, got the unlucky news later that Mark Doty was the later-revealed judge a few of the contests where she ended up being a Finalist. Meaning: with contests that don't announce the judge, you never know who you're getting. She was unlucky. Doty didn't pick her manuscript as the winner for the first one, which is fine. But in 3 or 4 more contests where she was a Finalist, Doty ended up being announced as the judge, and he didn't change his mind, which makes sense. I'm not griping here, but stating an interesting fact and showing yet another layer of how unlucky and weird and complicated these things can be.

The fact that I've placed 3 times in the last year makes me pretty happy, considering I think it's taken me this long to really "find" the book. 38 out of the current 41 poems in my manuscript are published. Not to mention most of the ones I've cut are published also. Does that matter? No, it doesn't, as I've seen good books with 3 or 4 published poems out of every poem in the contents. But it boosts my confidence -- maybe even naively -- and makes me think the book is there. I know the book is there. After sending it out for a year, I've learned a lot, spent a decent amount of cash, and have a much better book than I did. Had I somehow how won the Crab Orchard contest a year ago and my book was going to be imminently published, I wonder if I'd have done as much work as I have NOT knowing it's going to ever be published.

But here's the rub: of course you never know. I still have Jason Bredle's words in my head: "Don't get stuck on the first manuscript or you'll never move on." Now I know what he means, especially since I haven't been writing as much new work as I want to. But the other thing I've been able to do in the last few months is finally look at it objectively. In one of David Wojahn's essays in STRANGE GOOD FORTUNE (an essay that all folks sending out their first manuscripts should read), he says something like, "Most first books are in two parts: one's about sex, and the other is about everything else." It's funny to see how that rings true indeed with many, but mine's thankfully not one of them. At least I hope not. Not only that, but like I said before, the book's here, this is the book, but I'm also not writing poems like this much anymore. I may be wrong in assessing myself as lucky for at least thinking that I've completed a book, but fuck it, I do consider myself lucky.

I can't find it right now, but Chase Twitchell of Ausable Press had this rant about MFA theses not being first books. Something akin to, and for most of us we stop listening at the needlessly pregnant baggage-inducing first part, "When I was at Iowa none of us ever tried to send out our first books..." etc. etc. One of my favorite books of the last five years, Brian Teare's THE ROOM WHERE I WAS BORN, was mainly, at least from what Wojahn told me, Teare's thesis, of which I believe David was the director. There are more than we think, and I think the words of Twitchell -- especially these days -- need to be thrown out the window. Yes, there a ton of theses that are bad for many reasons, some laid out in the beginning of this post. But I like to consider myself, if this sucker is ever published of course, one of those writers and former MFAers.

Good God this is long. So I'll stop here. I feel this whole thing's mainly for me. Maybe I'm wrong about it all or will be. Maybe I'm still too young and clueless. But a lot of this has been on my brain, and I needed to get it out. Like I said, it's been a year. I hope it doesn't take me five more for my first manuscript to hit the publishing world, but if it does, I'm game. But seriously, I hope it's not five years.