Summering

The school year at Binghamton University is officially over in a month. I'm sure the next three years will fly also.

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Had an amazing spring break in Savannah with my brother and sister-in-law. Minus the pollen and the bugs, Savannah is one of my favorite cities. You really never run out of great things to do and see, and it literally has something for everyone.

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Got my contributor copies of Cave Wall the other day. The journal is slim, handsome, and full of good stuff.

I have two poems from the new manuscript within the pages. Thanks to Rhett for including me.

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Though we're still working on proofs for Ghost Lights, (mainly because I'm an editor's worst nightmare, as very few of my poems in the book, which I've probably mentioned before, are left justified) we're almost completely done at this point, and since the painting for the cover has been obtained, I can now show you what it's going to be. Again, thanks to Felicia for letting me use it. I love it, and I think it works perfectly with the book.

Bear is working on a cover design now. The back cover and blurbs are pretty much set, but we're trying to make sure everything on the front meshes well with the images, as far as the font and color scheme.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled with how everything's coming together.

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The new manuscript also seems to be coming together, now that I'm working closely with Joe Weil on it.

I've written a new poem (with at least a few more to follow), continue to edit many of the poems, and have shifted many of the poems around in different sections (which works a lot better than it did before).

I hope it's close to becoming a legitimate contender by the end of summer or before.

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The Days of Heaven (yes, the image at the top of my blog is from the film) Blu-ray is now officially one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen in my entire life.

Gave

I finally sent out a new batch of poems yesterday to a bunch of journals.

I haven't done that in a long time. It felt good. Even if nothing pans out.

Somehow I still feel good about getting rejections, which forces me to write new stuff that the journals who rejected the poems may actually like next time around.

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The fourth proof of Ghost Lights found its way to me a few days ago. It's really starting to make me smile now. It looks great, and it's getting to those final stages. Clean text, a good design, a good font.

We're trying to figure out cover art and color schemes for the cover and back cover soon. I have a few paintings I'm looking at. The one I wanted we couldn't get. So it's more looking.

I have a handful of blurbs now too, with, I think, one more to go.

Things are coming together. I'm getting excited. I hope folks like the words.

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Josiah Bancroft, a friend and talented poet, is blogging. I have a feeling you'll want to frequent it.

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Added a few pages and poems to the new manuscript, and took out some pages and poems. I feel better about it each time this happens. This makes sense, I think.

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I looked at a poem yesterday in the new manuscript. A new poem that I've sent out a bit over the last month or two, though scattered, and after previously reading who-knows-how-many times, I found a mistake at the end of the very first line.

Seriously?

I think I read the manuscript too much on the computer. May have to suck it up and print it out again. I'm usually great at finding that stuff, but sometimes your brain just keeps scanning the error as correct.

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My niece is going to be born in April. I will soon be Uncle Keith. Which is awesome.

She already has a ton of Giants gear, but Jess and I will certainly be getting her more.

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Seriously can't stop listening to the Amman/Josh EP Places. Get it.

Six Months

Got my second proof corrections finished for Ghost Lights about an hour ago.

I feel like I'm way too much of a stickler in some ways, but then I realize it's necessary.

It shouldn't take more than two more proofs to get everything good to go, but we'll see.

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Spinning these records a lot lately:

• Beach House - Teen Dream
• Owen Pallett - Heartland
• Efterklang - Magic Chairs
• Tindersticks - Falling Down a Mountain
• The American Dollar - Atlas
• Vampire Weekend - Contra
• The Album Leaf - A Chorus of Storytellers

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School starts back up officially in a week.

I'm ready to get back. Never did I think a break would be too long of a break. Until now.

But really I shouldn't complain.

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Jess and I have been married for six months today. Time goes fast.

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I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot.

Some

Received the new issue of Handsome a few days ago. Beautifully designed it is. A lot of good writers within the pages. Thanks again to the editors.

I now have one more poem that needs to actually be published from Ghost Lights until they're all in journals and none are forthcoming.

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I was also thrilled yesterday to get the first round of Ghost Lights galleys.

It's funny: what I never thought would be an issue is my penchant for italics and indentation.

I'm pretty sure it was Joshua Poteat who got me obsessed with how a poem can look on the page. For better or worse. And I don't know where the italics came from, but I clearly didn't realize I had that much in the book. I used it for dialogue mostly, though, and there's a lot within many of the poems. I think I just like how it looks mostly, or at least that's how the obsession started...

Thankfully I have much less italics in the new manuscript, though the crazy indentations and forms are still there. Will I ever trust myself to be strictly left-justified?

Since I start school again in exactly two weeks, I took about five hours and got about fourteen typed pages of corrections to my editor. I think I got most of it, but we'll see.

I'm doing my best to make sure everything's as perfect as can be before it goes to the printers in a few months. I suppose that kind of goes without saying.

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Steve had a very interesting post recently concerning defunct journals and Acknowledgments pages:

I was looking at the acknowledgments page of Torched Verse Ends, and by my count at least five of the journals I placed individual poems in are already defunct (Cranky, Diner, three candles, Unloved Mail Order Bride, and Unpleasant Event Schedule). Plus, the journal I edited for a good portion of time while I was producing the poems, The Eleventh Muse, is either defunct or might as well be. Beyond that, a ton of the journals that were generally prominent and well regarded when I first started trying to publish poetry are gone too: Chelsea, Grand Street, Partisan Review, Ontario Review, etc. And now many university reviews are in danger: New England Review, Triquarterly, The Southern Review, etc. Is there a lesson in that impermanence, especially considering that we're clearly publishing in the age of obsolescence for the print book? I don't know. Maybe it's just that if you're really a writer, you enjoy that publication when it happens, but then consider it over and move right on to writing your next thing. Maybe something actually deep that I haven't thought of yet. What do you think?

I looked at my Acknowledgments for Ghost Lights, and right now, it looks like the only journal that will be defunct will be Diner.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in a year. How many more will be gone? I didn't know Chelsea was done either.

That said, I've always been of the mind that says, "OK, this is published, now move on." And then there's the cool thing that happens after, when it's actually published.

The best thing about getting something published, to me, is being forced to work on something new if you want to get there again. Always a good thing.

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Really enjoyed A Serious Man, which I finally saw the other day. Bizarre, disjointed, and hilarious. See it.