I've been working on two new poems--that is to say poems that had nothing to do with my thesis--and I am so pleased with my progress that I may share them at this weekend's reading. One of them is more ready than the other, so the jury is still out.

Something that has helped with the one poem, especially, is employing the discipline of haiku. With few exceptions, I've written a haiku each day of the new year, and I find that it forces an economy of language and makes my phrasing crisp and pointed in my "real" work. Eliminating qualifiers and exposition is goal number one for my writing at this stage. In haiku there is no room for these distractions.

I'm a little nervous. I want the reading to go well. I want the pieces to be understood and well received. But this is where my role as an artist ends. I put my work out into the world and people will feel about it the way they feel about it. It's not up to me.

The Books on CD Parade continues. Now I'm on to Playing With Boys, and it is such a pleasant listen. I have 2 more discs out of the 13 to go. Three very different Latinas are at the forefront of this charming contemporary novel. It's about empowerment without being uber political in tone (that is to say it is not didactic and polarizing). The politics of the piece is secondary, I should say, to the stories of the women's lives. It's funny, consistent, and is an excellent study in voice.