Today I got my copy of Poet’s Market 2010 in the mail. I have been faithfully reading this reference book since I was 18 or 19 years old. I remember sneaking down to the basement of my parent’s house and reading and re-reading the descriptions of literary magazines, enjoying the snippets of poetry in each one. I remember sending poems to a mag called “Blue Unicorn” because I was 19 and liked the name. I remember carefully searching the beginning essays and FAQs for secrets, for meaning, that would help me become a “real writer.” I scrawled notes in the margin in blue pencil. I dogeared pages of journals I liked. It helped reveal to me, in conservative, non-bookstore-loving Cincinnati, a real literary world that I knew nothing about.
This is why I feel strangely happy to have written two of those beginning essays for this year’s Poet’s Market. Maybe a 19-year-old who has never heard of “speculative poetry,” who doesn’t know yet what a “poetry chapbook” is, will get inspired. I know you can look up most lit mags on the web now (and this year’s version includes a year’s subscription to online poetry resources as well.) But I still love having the physical object of The Poet’s Market around.

Yesterday I went through National University’s five-hour new faculty orientation. Five hours in highly uncomfortable chairs. It made me thankful my classes have all been online and not in classrooms with flickering fluorescent lights and tiny desks. Again, though I spent lots of time on university campuses since my Dad’s a professor, it still feels weird to be there as a faculty person, not a student.

I’m going to go up to LA tomorrow to a little bookstore called Stories Books to read with two other poets. Hope to see you there!