I'm a list maker. I write lists of things I need to do and I do them. For poetry, I make a list of places I'd like to submit to, submissions deadlines, contests, etc. and submit to them--except this month, I'm like that scene in Seinfeld about the car rental place: "You know how to make the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation." I have been making the list, I just haven't been completing the list.
I can blame this on graduation, on those summer days, but honestly, I've had enough time, I just haven't been submitting. I tend to write less in the summer. Poetry becomes this thing I long to do in the fall, but I sort of have this disappointment with myself for being so lazy and also, to see myself as this separate person who is doing the job because right now, as I type this, I could be printing out 4 poems and mailing them off, but I'm not.
I believe as writers and artists, our lives move like the tide. Sometimes we're calm and the beach is full of sand dollars. Other times, we're stormy and beach is littered with debris. I'm in a transitioning place right now, I'm not calm, but I'm not stormy. I could be the eye of the hurricane, except maybe the weatherman got it wrong. Mostly, I'm the person on the beach watching the sunrise. Not because I'm being metaphorical and sunrise actually means I've come to an end in my writing, but because I'm comfortable here and it's a nice view.
So, to all the saltwater poets out there with their stiff beach hats and flip-flops. Enjoy the view this summer, but bring a pencil and take notes.
