A sudden rush of sending out & signing up

Earlier this week I found myself pulling out old poems as well as some recent work, and giving them a bit of a pummelling. As a result I’ve had a spree of sending out to magazines and (yes I’m afraid so) the odd competition.

As luck would have it, I’m booked into a half-day Poetry Business workshop on Saturday with Jackie Wills and Michael Laskey, which I enrolled for months ago thinking by this time I’d be back in the poetry-writing saddle. Good timing.

And as if that weren’t enough, this morning I saw a tweet from Carrie Etter about her Arvon at Home week co-hosted by Sasha Dugdale, and I couldn’t resist an impulse-purchase. I’ve kind of sworn off any more residential courses, which I find rather stressful for many reasons, but the idea of doing it all from the comfort and splendid isolation of my home, with two of my favourite poets, is very appealing. The topic to be worked on is how to get a collection together, something I’ve been noodling around for ages, so that sealed the deal.

I’ve also been inspired by the latest issue (the first of my subscription) of PN Review which just arrived, including a page of poems by Shane McCrae which really excited me. They’re now pinned up next to my desk for inspiration.