The Rest of My Yesterdays..

I'm listening to Alana Davis and trying to get motivated to start my week with a clean apartment.

I bugged my friend Mitchell Douglas to do a poetry challenge, thinking that I would be up for it -- that I would want to write a poem a day for a week and found that not to be the case. I wrote two and a half poems. The challenge ends Monday. I have been reading furiously. Does that count? Thinking about poetry instead of writing it?

My friend said something profound today that sort of eased my "I'm not doing anything productive" anxiety. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: i'm so not in the right writing space.
5:37 PM me: yeh, i hear you
5:38 PM Friend: lol
you hear me?
me: yup. loud n clear. i've not in the right anything space right now
6:07 PM Friend: maybe this is a season in which you are supposed to enjoy life & what God has already done
6:08 PM "How God Ends Us" really is a lovely, palpable, quietly powerful piece of work.
Bask in it!
6:09 PM Don't sweat the next thing. God will bring "Cartographer" and your Palestine project to pass. & whatever you're to do after them, well, it'll come, too.
Who knows how they'll coalesce & evolve at NYU.
Feel me?

--------

So that calmed me down a bit. And I should not feel like I'm not doing anything. I mean, since March 29, I've participated in 14 readings. This Wednesday will be the last appearance of the Spring and will top me off at 15 readings. I've been busy. It's been exhausting. But still, a part of me, the busy-bee part of me, the worrying-because-I-feel-like-I'm-missing-something part of me still feels unease at the pending lull in activity.

Here's a preview to the Fall, however: (this is in addition to going to school and working!)

**August 28, 2009 -- South Carolina -- South Carolina Poetry Initiative will host my SC Book Launch
**Sept 11, 2009 -- New York City -- Bryant Park Reading room with Cave Canem's Nehessaiu DeGainnes and Charles Lynch
**Sept 19, 2009 -- South Carolina -- SCPI Poet's Summit with other poets: Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren
**October 15-17 -- Lowell, Ma -- Mass. Poetry Festival

I'm hoping to get a few more readings for the Fall and Spring.