It was good, though strange, to see old friends from so many different parts of my life—high school, college, writers’ conferences—yesterday afternoon. I do best in large, dark rooms where I can’t make out anyone familiar. The bigger and darker, the better. This reading was in a small, brightly-lit room with the sound of frying from the bar kitchen in my good ear.
I also like choosing a kind-looking stranger to turn my eyes up to, no matter how many friends are in the room—a leftover habit from my singing days. There always seems to be one stranger like that. There was one yesterday too, so thank you.
What else? I have an old/new poem "The Land" in the latest issue of the PN Review.
Old because it really is old, about ten years; new because it’s finally seeing print. Ten years is, unfortunately or not, a pretty average turn-around time for me getting poems from initial creation to publication, just like this one.
Such a thing makes me feel both incredibly happy/relieved/justified and weary/sad.
