Good-bye Harriet

So I am leaving Harriet today. My fourth book of poems, The Endarkenment, was recently accepted for publication (by University of Pittsburgh Press), and I want to focus on revising the manuscript, and also developing some prose ideas.

It has been interesting to be a part of Harriet from the beginning and a pleasure interacting with the four other bloggers. They are what enticed me to be a part of Harriet in the first place, and I look forward to reading with them all in New York in September.
People who would be fun to see blogging in the future (in no particular order): A.E. Stallings (a US poet living in Athens, Greece), Crystal Williams, Matt Cook, Paisley Rekdal, Francisco Aragon, Edwin Torres, Anis Mogjani, Rich Villar, Tara Betts.
I guess what I have enjoyed most is the exchange of ideas, when the bloggers have rubbed up against one another, when people and poets from outside the blog capsule have become part of the conversation. That inter-activeness is fun and unpredictable and can be educational.
I guess one thing that was challenging in writing this blog was the speed factor. A poem can take months to evolve, but with a blog you have to keep the posts rolling. You grab some mental firewood, hack it up a little, and toss it onto the fire, it burns up and turns into ash and is gone, whereas with a poem, you take the firewood and you craft it, you sculpt it, you leave it on the shelf for months, you work on it some more, maybe you stain it, maybe you paint some eyes, and maybe you still burn it, but it’s a much more elaborate process. A blog should not rhyme with jog, that is too slow. A blog is more like a sprint, so perhaps they should be called blints.
Anyway, kisses to Rachel and her babies. Kisses to Kenneth and Kwame. Kisses to Patricia. Kisses to Emily and Nick. Good-bye Harriet, you frisky, wily, old scrapper. Thanks for letting me shack up in your blog cabin.