July was an excellent month. August looks good too.
- I'm not going to comment on current events, otherwise this post would simply consist of the words STOP STOP STOP repeated ad infinitum.
- I read at the Rosalux gallery with Brett Elizabeth Jenkins and Opal McCarthy who are both very talented and nice and funny.
- My friend Lindsey started Cards Against Harassment and gained a lot of attention for being courageous and eloquent (two attributes poetry aspires to).
- I reviewed Patricia Lockwood's crazy and very good book, Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals. It is not the kind of poetry I would read to my grandparents.
- I've listened to some new (to me) music this month that has really impressed me. Much of it is heavy metal, but I think that even non-heavy music listeners could appreciate Deafheaven's Sunbather.
The single biggest thing to happen to me in July was winning a slot in the 2014-2015 Loft Mentor Series. I've been applying for several years and never so much managed to be a finalist. I'm very excited about this opportunity to grow as an artist and a person, especially working so closely with mentors Matt Rasmussen and Patricia Smith. Endless thanks to both of them for selecting me.
I looked over my goal statement after finding out I'd been selected. My goals are at once simple and very difficult: continue to write and revise poems for my manuscript; learn how to read better (and be pushed to read things I might not have); raise the level of my craft, including how to better critique my own work. Basically, Write A Lot and Read Even More.
I mention these goals here in order to be able to mark how they are focused and altered during my time in the program. I expect them to change as I learn and grow, and I want to be able to look at that progress. I'll post updates as the program progresses, but I expect that our meetings and seminars will be, for the most part, useful to me and not very interesting to others. There will be several readings associated with the program (including one at which I will read) and I'll be sure to yell about those events a lot before they happen.
Here's to August and making it a whole blog post without making a Counting Crows reference.
I looked over my goal statement after finding out I'd been selected. My goals are at once simple and very difficult: continue to write and revise poems for my manuscript; learn how to read better (and be pushed to read things I might not have); raise the level of my craft, including how to better critique my own work. Basically, Write A Lot and Read Even More.
I mention these goals here in order to be able to mark how they are focused and altered during my time in the program. I expect them to change as I learn and grow, and I want to be able to look at that progress. I'll post updates as the program progresses, but I expect that our meetings and seminars will be, for the most part, useful to me and not very interesting to others. There will be several readings associated with the program (including one at which I will read) and I'll be sure to yell about those events a lot before they happen.
Here's to August and making it a whole blog post without making a Counting Crows reference.
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