fulfilling promises

i promised friends i would pursue publication when i returned from dodge and made it through denver. this time is now upon me. and it has me wondering, pondering my strategy. consulting with the writers who have advised me thus far and elicited such brave words from me as, i promise. why i say these things, i do not know.

so i'm in my corner chair yesterday. reading keillor's good poems for hard times, and the trees are dancing for me in the breeze. they are distracting me, in the best of ways, and i spend most of my time gazing at them. watching the slight pale green of upturned leaves, wishing i knew their names and species so i could call them aright, not just tipleaf. a lick of crimson in an otherwise green tree caught my eye, so bright it was, i thought a cardinal must be perched there, but it was the turning, changing of seasons, which has finally begun outside my plate glass windows at the library, so it must be true. though i've been gawking at trees for weeks now.

i read some works and with poetry i find it evenly breaks for me, usually with anthologies, about half the works i don't like. wouldn't read again unless you paid me (even then, i might not). but i'm thinking about this promise, this pursuit of publication i've promised i'd begin and i wondered, does pursuit of publication for me look like an agressive move forward or a passive waiting.

for me, thus far, i've been waiting. growing. becoming. i keep telling myself, the work only improves with time. no one would argue with that. what's the rush to publication? i'm so glad i didn't come out with mere consolations back when i was ready to, a full year ago now, because it is not the work i want first out.

but my collection of work now is clearly christian and nonchristian, do i mesh these works and how? how much do i say? how much do i leave unsaid?

these are all serious questions, which need time to be understood.

the problem, the absolute problem with christian publishing, in my opinion is the rush and hurry to publication. i want my best work compiled and now, looking at the fifty poems i submitted for selection and editing, they are no longer my best work. the work keeps changing, growing.

but i did read through my entire collection of the past year and was encouraged that there is a story there, a preserved voice. i am saying something. whether it is something that will resound or not, whether it is something publishable or not, is not for me to decide. my task, is penning poems.

before yesterday, i'd not written in a great while. since the day before i left for denver. that is aeons for me. but i've learned to wait. to not sweat the silence. to be still and trust.

this is how i mean to pursue publication as well. it can only improve the work.