Yea!!

The Sneaker Spotter found me in my DC lair.  We were in a poets' workshop in the south.  It was kind of hard, even though it was an ‘artsy’ town, to put together a decent writers' group and I had all but given up on such when I ended up, somehow, writing with her (a professor from a local university), a poetry editor from a nationally known rag, and an MFA candidate from the same local university.  We ended up doing a great reading when I was finally leaving town – much fun had by all. 

It was one of the better workshopping groups I’ve been in and came at a much needed time for me when my writing was spiraling into I’m not quite sure what – a kind of jaded and cat-like detachment, a kind of solipsism?   As much as we’d like to think that writing in isolation is possible (and it is for a short while) our writing is never far from the poetry of others and must, I think, on some near-conscious level during the process of creation, remind itself of the audience (the other) as it takes its shape.  Then again I have fairly radical views on this;  the constant and necessary tension between the public and the private, between the guiding impulse and surrendering to the poem’s shapings. 

In any event, the Sneaker Spotter found me via mail - sent me a copy of her recent chapbook; in it there are a few poems which won a national contest which is quite the feather in her cap and decidedly odd for me to read since two of those poems were discussed heavily in our workshop.  In a way it must be like getting graduation or wedding photos of your friend’s children.  She also sent me a nice article about the book (which had a smoking picture – the Sneaker Spotter is a decidedly hot babe) and a note saying she’ll be in DC this November for a conference. 

If you hadn’t already guessed, this has totally made my afternoon.