Back to Cat Stevens as he helps me live. I am getting ready to read HOLDING COMPANY by Major Jackson. I'm looking forward to it.

I've written something like 52 drafts of new poems. I recognize in some ways the language is prosaic, but that's how the poems came. I think they came as a real relief after working on the emotionally difficult poems in my forthcoming collection SEVEN. I think also the new stuff is very, very fresh. Somehow it just poured out of me.  It still deals with trauma, but I think there's a strong sense of wonder for the natural world and our fragmented yet whole existence in the universe. They often swing from idea to idea, image to disjointed image. I seem to really like them, which didn't happen in the writing of SEVEN. I've struggled with writing the last seven years ironically.

The poems are coming. I needed to get through the work SEVEN because it dealt with some difficult issues regarding abuse and trauma. I wrote 3 drafts the night I found out my sister has breast cancer. I stayed up all night writing out of necessity. In any case, I feel that the writing is finally more balanced with the rest of life these days. I am walking and enjoying every day.

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I suppose I still blog to very very few if any because it helps me move from plateau to plateau with the poetry. Every time I think there isn't another poem in me, something like this happens. Also I think it was a means to helping me recover. I'm still in the process of recovery and healing and poetry helps me with that a lot.