Finally home from Pacific University’s second residency. Exhausted and kind of out of it and also surrounded by boxes in a new place, which has made me a little disoriented. Have a reading tomorrow night with some other excellent poets on Bainbridge Island, which should be fun. I’m going to read from my new chapbook.

Can’t even remember all the highlights of the trip – Marvin Bell and Glenn Moore’s workshop on reading poetry with jazz accompaniment which was a blast, the panel with all the poets (Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Marvin Bell and Pattiann Rogers) on “What Makes a Poem Sexy,” and meeting all the new students were definitely up there on the list. Also, a quote from Pattiann Rogers: “Disney Has Ruined So Many Words.” I don’t even know exactly what that means, but it sounds like it would make a great poem.

I’m actually really looking forward to reading my book list this semester, which includes a ton of newer books, mostly by women, people like Dana Levin, Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe, Carol Ann Duffy, Denise Duhamel. I’ve also been made the editor-in-chief for the launch of the new MFA-based lit mag, to be named soon, which is exciting, but I’m trying to figure out how to balance school and the lit mag and volunteer work and paying work and health stuff – and oh yeah, all that writing and trying to get published stuff. I’m sure it will all work out. That, or I’ll collapse in nervous exhaustion. Either way 🙂

I need to catch up on my mail and reading – I’ve got three books waiting for reviews and a friend’s MS I promised to look through. Not too mention all the back episodes of Lost and Alias I’ve missed. One thing that was really funny about the students at the MFA program was how many of them share my geek interests – coding, X-Files, Buffy, video game addictions, etc. Weird.

Off to unpack and then sleep as long as possible. Hopefully I will recover my ability to write cogently after that.