And I'm sorry to see it go. I wrote more than 30 poems, posted them and critiqued with a talented group at Alsop Review's Gazebo, an activity I was hesitant to undertake. My deal with my muse is that I can write things I will show nobody, but I surprised myself by being able to write those and many more things I would show others, even in their raw, 24-hour-old form. I used some old drafts as springboards but mostly composed from scratch at the start or end of a day, used a lapse of some hours to let the idea settle and enrich, and revised quickly, then posted. I commented on many poems, if not all, every day. You can read all of it, poems, comments and the general daily free-for-all of comedy. Shared dilemmas yield hilarity, I find.
In all, I must have spent an average of two hours a day on poetry, a lot more than I usually do. I reminded myself of my friend Lynne Knight, a marvelous poet who has a rigorous morning writing routine I have long admired.
By the way, for those of you in or near the Bay Area, Lynne is reading from her new book Again at Moe's on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley. The reading is tonight at 7:30 pm. She's well worth journeying across bridges to hear.
Now, from the profound to the ridiculously trivial. I am so excited about my birthday present, which has been ordered and is on the way: an Eternity phone. No, it's not one you can use to call people in the afterlife (silly name) but an iPhone clone with an actually good phone (unlike what I hear of the iPhone). I tried one in the store and can't wait to have the Internet in my pocket. Look out. My blogging may become severely frequent.