There must be something in the air. For many months, I’ve missed the sense of community in the poetry blogging world that I found when I stumbled onto readwritepoem back in 2009. Like many, I do better as a writer when I feel there are others on the same or similar journeys. I really admired Carolee’s commitment to revitalizing her poetry blogging practice in November, and I’d made a private resolution to do the same here in 2018. Seems there were a lot of us out there thinking along the same lines as I saw on Donna Vorreyer’s blog. So I joined in committing to trying to post something poetry-related here at least once a week.
Blogging made me a better writer, more focused, disciplined and adventurous than anything else other than perhaps grad school, and since I let it start to slide several years ago I have missed it terribly, both the blog and the people I encountered through the community of blogging poets.
I took a four-year detour into the world of editing and while it was such a wonderful experience, I came to miss writing and reading what I wanted to read. Most of my poetry reading the past few years has been the submissions queue for Gnarled Oak, and while I have been blessed to have read so much fine work, I want to get back to reading poetry books and chapbooks–oh, how I miss chapbooks.
In December, I made three new videos, one of which was even featured over at Moving Poems (Thanks, Dave!). I thought a lot about how much I miss this sort of thing. The creating, the sharing, the discovery and growth.
I’ve written very few new poems over the past few years and I’m chomping at the bit to get back to work, so here I am resolving for 2018 to do this. I plan to try to post at least once a week on poetry-related matters, whether draft poems, reviews, commentary or new videos and also, just as important, read and share some of what I find from the other blogging poets whose work I really admire and who are a constant source of inspiration. Thanks for stopping by.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
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