Onward + upward

Friday was the last day of my summer class. Now I'll just be grading for two days, and catching up on everything I couldn't catch up on before. Oh, and quite a bit of editorial work, too.

I've decided to start waking up at 6:00 instead of 5:30, now that I'm not teaching and my schedule is a little more flexible. That half hour makes quite a difference. I just hope I don't use it as an excuse not to go to bed on time.

We've added a couple of really amazing essays to the first volume of the Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics, and that's exciting.

I have also been doing some jury work for a state arts council. I find reading the artist's statements both enjoyable and vexing. There's such a fine line between establishing a need, and bitching about how much the electric bill costs. I get upset when applicants don't talk about poetry at all, as if this is a purely fiscal application. Sometimes the statements are confrontational. Sometimes they talk down to the jury (as if we're not a panel of experts, and need a lot of poetry basics explained to us).

Maybe some time I will write about my own approach to the artist's statement. I guess my own statements are a little dreamy, but I want to give the readers a sense of what the poems are trying to do, and why anyone should care about them.

Of course, the writing sample is what matters most. I always read that first.

Anyhow, I guess it's time to get to work on other things. I am totally spinning my wheels right now. Where to begin? Where to begin?

I think a to-do list is in order.