I am here and I’m not, running through my lists of work, obligations, and projects. I’m a little disorganized right now.
I have four manuscripts, three written by Pinay poets, that I have agreed to read and respond to.
I am finishing up Diwata edits; it’s all just cleaning up stuff now. I nailed the one poem I was afraid I couldn’t. I am grateful for the feedback here on my End Notes. Working with the BOA editors has been fabulous; those of you who for whatever reasons dislike or prefer to avoid editorial input, I can only ask you to reconsider. I understand that a good editor does not try to make your writing/voice into someone else’s. I see how a good editor works to understand your motivations and vision, and then engages with you and your manuscript in order to sharpen, clarify, amplify. I take this to heart as I read the above mentioned four manuscripts, and as I have taken on two guest editor projects, both for Spring 2010.
I am still co-curating and hosting the PAWA Arkipelago reading series, and we are starting to think about the schedule for 2010. The reading series is becoming multidisciplinary; in August, we had academic/social science presentations. I am out of my league hosting these; Q&A can be contentious in a way I can’t manage. With the questions directed at creative writers, I am totally in my element. We have musical guests now, and I think this is a great thing. I am wondering what happens when we bring in more theatrical performers. I will be guest curating and hosting a couple/few salon events at Eth-Noh-Tec (as well as performing there once again), which is always an interdisciplinary space, so perhaps I will learn a thing or two there.
I am still blogging at the Hyphen magazine blog, but only once a month these days. This is now a manageable task, though I have a very long list of API authors published by indie presses that I have to plug away at.
I am still blogging at the Poetry Foundation Harriet blog (am halfway through my obligatory 24 posts), and wondering about my usefulness there. Last night I told Oscar that I think the readers of the blog don’t give a shit about anything I have to say. I wonder about these spaces, and the good or usefulness of “infiltrating” these spaces filled with people who I do not think of as my readership, my audience, my community, my students. In other words, I can’t find an important reason why I’d need to talk about poetry with them. As I am constantly being told it is a good thing that I am there, I have to ask why and what’s the point? Most importantly, doesn’t this just take away from the work I could and should be doing within my own community/ies here?
Hi Barbara,
I think you are doing a lot of good at the Poetry Foundation by educating people about marginalized poets. You do good work and have to keep up the faith. People are reading.
Sheryl
i want to second the comment by sheryl luna above. just because a post doesn’t get hundreds of comments doesn’t mean people aren’t reading it and getting a lot of value out of it. come to think of it, who wants to attract some of those nasty harriet commenters anyway? also, don’t forget the value of the archive. i, for one, often go back and read substantial older posts that have been archived at harriet. i’m sure there are others who browse through blog backlogs too.
Thank you, Sheryl and Roz, I appreciate the confidence. But I have to be truthful about the silence, even isolation I’m feeling. Let me refer back to my previous post:
http://bjanepr.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/blogging-about-blogging-among-other-things/
Specifically this:
“…there are the storytellers who are bloggers around whom folks gather or to whom folks link, and there are the readers. Some readers leave comments and some kind of dialogue arises, and develops into – what? More dialogue based upon similar concerns leads to the formation of community? Some folks lurk, and in non-virtual spaces, we can still appreciate the presences of people who aren’t vocal. We can still see them engaged with the storytelling. We see their facial expressions and body language. In e-world, I don’t know about this. I can’t look at my stat counter and see a community there.”