- Diane was recently asked why she writes about fruits and vegetables. A fascinating question, what we write about. Early in my "career", I tended to rely on water as the central image in just about anything of value I put to paper. When the barriers between my selves began to drop, I started to make better use of the engineer side of me and bring concepts from science, particularly physics, into the work. I'm torn, though: is the vocabulary off-putting to the dominant interests of poetry readers?
- We spend a ton of time in our local library. A TON. But the fine poet and educator BJ Ward has an essay up at the American Library Association site that makes me feel like a sporadic squatter in that world.
- The Mets just make my teeth hurt, you know that?
- Working on a new chapbook project, doing more organized research than my usual casual "Oh, that's neat, what can I do with that" approach to turning reading into writing. It's interesting. I've actually got a story to write to, which both burdens and liberates the process. It's really fascinating me. The risk for me (again, re: engineer) is to stop the research at some point and start the writing.
- In addition to the targeted readings, I've been back into the parenting books recently. I'm still in the same place -- Most aren't useful for fathers, many aren't useful in the least to anyone with sense -- but sometimes reacting to bad ideas can create good ones. That, too, falls under "research".
Maybe if I research the Mets next....
Happy Spring!
