Up early, reading poems for this morning’s workshop, writing comments and comments and comments. Heard an interesting talk about structure yesterday (more on that soon), which, like all new interesting information, changes how I ask questions, so now I’m all about “has the poem convinced me that it has the authority to make me trust its assertions?”

Hmmm, I’m thinking that, with other nouns, or pronouns, substituted for “the poem,” this could be a most valuable questions in all manner of interesting and vital ways.

We got our mentors yesterday. I’ll be working with Ross Gay, who as poet does amazing combinations of sound and sense and as a lecturer says many very smart things. My “Briar Rose” sonnet came out of his New Work Workshop last January, because he asked good questions and gave an interesting prompt.

Today’s schedule — workshop in the morning (crap, I gotta get off of the computer and into the shower soon!!), then a lunch meeting with another poet to talk about a panel at a conference, then a meeting with my mentor, then a lecture on “Some Questions Regarding the Function of Syntax”, then another lecture on “Lyric Impulse in the Time of Extinction,” then dinner, then readings by Joan Larkin and Ira Sadoff, and somewhere in between I have to start in on reading and commenting on poems for tomorrow’s workshop.

In workshop this morning, my poem is my ghazal “My Golden Thing.” (The version here is old, I’ll update it soon). That kind of very structured form is new to me, so we’ll see how that goes.

It’s a damn good thing I’m an intensity slut, and I am here with my people, or I’d be exhausted already.