It’s been a while since my last post, and I wanted to let you all know that I’m still here, but I’ve had a number of (mostly good) things keeping me from blogging much lately. When you have maybe an hour of free time on any given day, and you’re trying to squeeze in calling senators, writing postcards to elected officials, attending postcard parties and other election-related activities, all while trying to keep up with writing poetry and fiction, you drop some things.
And this blog, unfortunately, has been the thing I’ve dropped from my to do list most often of late.
So, what have I been up to? Writing, manuscript prep, and marketing. Which means I’ve been working on a second collection of poems while submitting poems, a novella, and multiple short stories to publishers on top of all that goes into heading toward the publication of my debut collection of poems, which will be out next summer. (Want to know more? I have a mailing list!) Also, I have a science fiction poem out at Strange Horizons today. It’s about alien implants. So there’s that.
I’m also working on separating out my more personal, writing-related posts from the sort of posts I had envisioned for Freethinking Ahead. In the next month or so, I’ll be blogging here about some responsibilities of secular humanists who create any sort of art or craft, though most of my examples will be from poetry or fiction. I’ll be giving a talk at the November Fellowship of Freethought Gathering on this topic, and my posts will work up to that presentation.
Over at my website, I’ll be blogging about writing, writing groups as procrastination, research as procrastination, procrastination as research, and the like. The first post is, of course, about procrastination: “Listening in the Distance: Or, Research and the Radio.” (Okay, I know, I said I have limited time, and I’m listening to the radio. That said, my listening-to-the-radio time is also time when I’m not quite energetic enough to string together decent sentences….)
And side note: the Q&A series with speculative poets is currently on hiatus, but it will be back soon. I’ll post more about this shortly.
Lastly, thank you. If you’ve just started reading my posts or if you’ve been reading them for a while, thank you. And if you’re up for sharing your thoughts on the subject, I’d be happy to hear more about what you’re interested in from Freethinking Ahead.
I trust you are T.D. Walker (I don’t see the author of this blog listed anywhere) since they were the author of the only poem in the issue at the link.
Anyway, I’m not very good with understanding poetry more than superficially, or being able to knowledgeably critique it, but Separation Anxiety was nonetheless very moving to me. It evoked the kind of eerie sense of dread I’m drawn to, and its rhythm and flow were impressive. It raises some interesting questions about “how long we choose to live with what we cannot believe.” I’m also a sucker for good metaphors and symbolism, so you got me there too. I think my favorite line was “The gravel road winds to it the way roads must wind when we cannot see them,” and I liked the effective repetition of “cannot see” in that stanza. (I dig repetition when it’s intentional; grimace when it’s clearly not.)
As a side note, you had your hook in me with the word “bone.” I don’t know why, but it’s like linguistic catnip to me. I like how it looks, how it imitates the sound of a funeral bell in my ears or resonates like a mantra, how its initial plosive feels in my mouth when I say it, its multiple definitions… Ahem, sorry, got carried away there. I like the word and I loved how you used it.
Anyway, thanks for writing it and bringing it to my attention, and welcome back (even though, being new, I didn’t notice you were gone ;))!
Thank you for reading the poem and for your comment, ridana!