Writing Season

Sorry for my slow response to the updating of my blog recently but it is a busy time at work getting ready for end-of-the-year summatives. I also have to move everything out of my classroom for there is a major renovation happening at my school, the upshot of it all being I will have a classroom next year with windows. Natural light. I have taught high-school for a decade in what amounts to a box with fluorescent artificial lighting which, believe me, does wonders for one’s mood, and writing, in the dead of winter.

This Spring my wife and I have also been busy with outdoor gardening projects and planning for a basement renovation that is scheduled to begin next week, and, of course, June marks the beginning of my writing season.

Because I have two months off each summer, this is when the majority of my poems get written. My goal every summer is to write, at the very least, ten strong poems which is how my books get written.

If I write six or seven poems over the course of the school year, fine. But it is in the summer months that I make my bones as a writer because I can concentrate on my writing for several hours each day. When I have the luxury of time, I tend to read more and to take greater risks in my writing. I think most writers do.

This is all to say I am hoping to write more and post less in the next few months. Blogging is something I like to do in my writing down-time but not as a replacement for writing poems. I am still planning posts on Philip Levine, Dave Smith, Larry Levis, among others but these will appear more sporadically in the coming months. In the meantime, here is another picture of a prized broadside from my collection.



(W.S. Merwin’s “Returning Season” illustrated and designed by Dean Bornstein. Signed by Merwin. Size: 12.25 inches wide by 9.25 inches long. You can get your own copy here).