Just an Update

Still working on defining my own guiding principles for poetry, and of course on continued revisions. I hope this week proves to be more productive than last, though a business trip on Thursday / Friday threatens to foul things up a bit. Airport poem, anyone?

I'm also looking toward my next submission, with the hope of getting another one out before April. Given that this week may be a little frantic, that will probably happen over the weekend instead. I've found that using the weekends to prepare submissions and do research (e.g., additions to my reading list, literary magazines, poetry events) is a good way to keep up my momentum while also giving myself a break. It also allows me more time during the week to devote to the poems themselves.

Speaking of reading, Fagles' translation of The Iliad has been incredible. At the end of Book 6, which I just completed this morning, there is a lovely and agonizing moment when Hector, having briefly returned from the battlefield to visit his wife and infant son, prepares to leave them again. Despite his assurances, his wife Andromache fears he will be killed. As Hector reaches down to touch his son--possibly for the last time--the boy cries out and recoils, afraid of his father's helmet and armor. It's an unexpectedly bittersweet and human moment in an epic that otherwise occupies itself largely with armies, heroes and gods, and it's the kind of moment to which I think poets ought to gravitate.