I am currently reading a phenomenal manuscript for an upcoming book. It's simply stunning, and it has me thinking about the "style" of my second manuscript nervously. In any case, I'd like to be more wild, less organic in my work next time around. I'd like to play more with surprising language and yes fragmentation, maybe the language of trauma doesn't have to be flat. Someone has just shown me this oh so vividly. Not sure why I lean towards narrative, but I do. Perhaps this is why several friends I admire write fiction and not poetry. I have leanings towards narrative, holistic pieces with a beginning, middle and end, which is so out now. :(

I am so glad to be conversing with poets after Canto Mundo. I have somehow though managed to promise a total of five reviews, one will be a novel, so I am somehow suddenly busy again, but free, so free to explore and dialogue with other writers. A very exciting time in my life. The problem is the excitement today is overflowing, and I don't want to bombard folks with email. Therefore, I blog. Wish I could go sit in a coffee shop with poets! Canto Mundo has spoiled me for this Denver isolation. I will reach out to other poets here? We'll see.

I am in some ways concerned about the lack of strong vocabulary exhibited in my own work. Being home in El Paso, I'm surrounded by Spanglish, Spanglish which at times I am now unable to decipher, especially that coming from my 98 year old grandmother. She does have dementia, so it's just difficult to decipher what exactly she's saying sometimes, but sometimes she's very, very sharp still. I'd like to make it to El Paso for her 99th birthday this October. Medicare won't pay to replace her pacemaker, due to her age (?) so she will likely not make it to a hundred. But basically, my upbringing seems to be with this Spanglish which consists of code-switching and animated physical gestures, not the language of academia!