The End of Sabbatical

My sabbatical was a success! More to come.

Strike Out

So now I see how it can be a struggle for me to write in the summertime as well as in December. It's ultimately about when one might feel anxiety. The strikeouts now are picking up again just as they had in July a couple of years ago. I'm not going through the physical paper copies I had made two make the jpegs.

Days 77 and 78

I am concentrating on the Strike Out erasures, finished several yesterday and today. I tried working on the Highlander, but I am not in the right space.

Because we are in the age of support our vets and everyone wants to hear the story of descendants understanding and accepting their veteran parents, where is the room for the complexity that one can still be wounded, that the war never ended over here, that veterans are still needing to work through their own mental health needs and it trumps their children's voices.

I know each of us is responsible for our own mental health,  that we can't lay blame on anyone for not seeking our own health, so the project is a way for me to find that work for recovery, for being productive,  and for criticism against unethical war, America where it needs to be blamed, to own the grave mistakes. Just as Germany has done, we need to own it. Where our parents won't own it, we will.

That is what this project is for me. These aren't my words I am saying.  I can be disassociated and heal from it.

To get me through this time when he is being his cutoff self.

Days 75 and 76

I had a great morning with Barbara on a Tuesday. I finished my future poem called at the pond, the future. I also finished erasures and a batch of film poems to send out. Today, I finished 5 more erasures. I also submitted At the Pond.

Day 74

I am pleased with how today is turning out. I met with Jericho to discuss poetry and made several notes about our course Psych of Poetics--that it is not as overwhelming as it sounds, that it is based in therapy.

I revised four poems and send out patches of submissions.

I am now going to Gage Park for rubbings. I also want to do an erasure--so I will. Found two and finished one so I can send the next batch out soon.

Eventually, I will be helping my mother with Christmas lights and doing work at the other house.

Also, I have the honor of blurbing for Allison Blevins's chapbook. I am excited to read her amazing work!


TO DO: send pp11-15 out.

On the Agenda

Finish three more erasures, submit
Submit Strike Out transcription to DIAGRAM
Submit At the Movies with Two Moms
Submit other poems

Look at accepted poems for unnamed Strike Out and write more
Chapbook

Erasures of PP are called Strike Out

Little House Essay
blurb for Allison

Day 73

To my surprise I found three strike out erasers I didn't know I had. I'm ready to send a batch to diagram. I have a talk tonight over the all true travels and Adventures of lyddie Newton, so I'm finishing the book today. This evening I'm going to be doing some writing at the Alamo Drafthouse. I'm going to try some somatic practices there. I also plan to send the trickster couplets out so I feel the sense of what I've accomplished.

Day 72

Yesterday I met with Barbara and we talked about our collaboration and how we create each part of the project. There is a PBS special I want to see called sinking cities so I will need to watch that on PBS. It helped start a poem. We also talked about going through Hall Commercial Printing for a perfect bound book into develop some kind of Kickstarter to help Finance the printing. We talked about the difference between being serious and Being Earnest, and that our show would run through March. We talked about the Jones Gallery in Kansas City as a possibility of another. I'm also working on the trickster couplets with movies and I'm feeling ready to send that for publication.

Day 71

I sent Barbara almost all of my pain poems to look at. At tomorrow's meeting we will be discussing what to use how to arrange things and so forth. I realized great way to have my poems be apart of her paintings. Those are things to come though.

I finished two strikeout poems and I'm looking at the possibility of having another submission soon. It takes about 30 minutes to make each one. I found all of the papers I have used 2 years ago where I was circling by hand, but I think I have a new system down where I just going to a page and start working somewhere in the middle. I select a few good images or something in the use of language and then I go down to look at what's at the bottom. I finally go back to the top where I know I have some kind of feeling or approach in mind. I'm trying to use words from every paragraph on the page. Now I'm going to work on when I movie poem.

Strike Out now

I realized if I work on a strike out each day Monday through Friday,  I will have five to submit somewhere.  I am making a chart in my book now. To keep track.

Also, the move of a lot of our things went well yesterday.