Year of Poetry Update - Week 46

Spring has arrived

Spring showed up for the first time this week with temperatures in the high thirties. Following from last week's calamities this week was significantly better in terms of health and output. Hours were up - I managed just over 4 hours in total and two poems solidified into good first drafts.

I recieved Racing Hummingbirds by Jeanann Verlee from my digital library and The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation by David Crystal, through interlibrary loan.

My copy of Best Australian Poems 2016 also arrived and it's good to see work by poets I am now more familiar with.

I have had a good run and it had to happen sooner or later - this week saw two rejections.  Those rejections came at the same time as a job contract for 12 months landed in my inbox, so I can't complain.

The sting of rejection continues to pack less venom each time.



The Writing...

was exceptional. I managed, as mentioned above, to get two poems completed, at least to the first draft/tinkering stage.  A combination of dragging myself out of bed earlier and getting shit done and not having a throat full of razor blades.

The Study...

Was surprisingly enjoyable considering the density of the text and the lateness of the day when I sat down to note Longenbach's chapter on Ending the Line in The Art of the Poetic Line.  I would have finished the notation today if I hadn't been distracted by David Alpaugh's essay on the Professionalisation of Poetry. It's well worth a read.  

As an exercise I examined the latest Best Australian Poems to determine how many contributors worked as professional creative writers, teachers of writing or had MA or PHD's in those fields.  As far as I could tell only about 40% did, which I think strikes a reasonable balance.

Close Reading...

I finished reading and noting Rin Ishigaki's Moving on.



For the Statbadgers:


Total time: 4:07(426:14) hrs

poem writing = 2:15 (197:25) hrs

close reading =0:30(83:09) hrs

technique/theory 1:10(99:35) hrs

reflection = 0:32(36:24) hrs

Poetry written:

2(41) poems completed


0(19)poems in draft


Poems Submitted:


0(25 in total) poems



Poems Published:


0(9) poem

Live Performances:
0(2)


Interviews:
0(1)


Rejections:


2(12) poems