La reina se va de descanso en su trono…

Honestly, I won’t feel the pain of my vanishing because much energy has been expended here on Harriet. I think I’ll look back in a few months and be impressed that I—once a blogger-hater—grew to respect the role and to look forward to writing entries. The convert in me declares: Bloggers rule! Six months of work, and well-spent, I might add. I’m not sure what the generous folks at the Poetry Foundation expected from me, but this is what they got.

My tenure is over, but my work as an activist writer is not done. I’ll still be reviewing two titles a month for my column at The El Paso Times, and I’m going back to reviewing for Luna. I’ll get my blogger on from the National Book Critics Circle’s Critical Mass, where I hope to enter profiles and interviews every month. My angle will be, as per my interests, small press books, poetry titles, and minority and queer writers, but with a slightly different flavor than the one I presented here on Harriet. So check in periodically.

I know that we are offered this forum to chime in whenever we feel the need to, but I think there’s much to be said for moving on. I will not be coming back to Harriet (except as a lurker—this blog is addicting, isn’t it?) because it will no longer be the same place I once knew, and that’s how it should be, always going forward.

Farewell to the bloggers remaining here, Major, Reginald and Daisy, hasta pronto Christian, Stephen and Alice, fellow Harrieteers also moving on, y suerte to the bloggers coming in, whoever they may be. It’s been quite a ride. And much gratitude to the Poetry Foundation, and to Emily and Nick and Don—all gente de aquellas. This space has become more relevant to the poetry community at large in less than a few years than some of the New York-based poetry organizations that been around for nearly a century and yet operate as if we’re still in 1950.

Y mil gracias to the faithful readers, and to those of you who wrote in to comment, even when it was to disagree. Dialogue is healthy. This was an extraordinary opportunity I couldn’t pass up and I hope Harriet will continue to invite the range of personalities, points of view and perspectives, from the political to the problematic, from the friendly to the ferocious. I was simply a small part of something bigger here. Blessings, and may this institution continue to thrive.

Signing off, besos y abrazos, (and in some cases, sombrerazos y zapatazos), and don’t forget to support the rally at the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in D.C. this May!

Rigoberto