Renewed and Returned

Although this post title sounds like ways to categorize library books, it's just that I'm back from a bit of a hiatus to update this site and update content, with apologies for those dead-end links that had been in place.

I've added a link to the Petaluma Poetry Walk, which celebrates its 17th year on the 16th of September. The Walk is a unique experience: over a score of poets at venues around town, all within walking distance from one another. Founder and director Geri Digiorno always assembles a great host of talent from all over the country, and I typically leave the day full to the brim with poetry, having gorged on well-spun words for hours. The experience always leaves me inspired.

I've been working on both my Welsh novel (working title: Hiraeth) and on quotidian scribbles that sometimes mature into poems. Looking at the body of work I have assembled over the last several years, I am both pleased to see a significant quantity and dismayed to see that the quality is not where I want it to be. This may be a reflection of evolving standards and a better ability to analyze, but then again it may also be my rather nasty "internal critic" raising her disapproving head. I prefer to believe the former, however - because I can see how to improve the older work, and I'm doing so as I go through and organize it in the interest of future publication.

Poets & Writers has an exciting contest in the works at the moment: the California Writers Exchange Contest. I've sent off a small collection of poems to be considered. And there are other deadlines for submissions coming up that have me focusing on creating and polishing poems. Inspiration sends me to the page, but external encouragements like deadlines, colleagues (and yes, occasional dares!) keep me coming back to hone my craft. That, and the satisfaction of shaping those lines to a satisfying form!