I’m back at Drew for my 4th residency. Well, I’ve been back since last Monday, but have been having the experience more and blogging about it less. It’s so deep but also so familiar, now, to be here, to know where everything is, to know the faculty (mainly, always someone new, in this case Jane Mead), to know how to match the poem I want to discuss to the poet leading the workshop, and to know what to NEVER touch in the dining hall.

Information is coming fast and furious, as always, and I’ll post more of it after I get home and the intensity fades a bit. Today, a Sunday, we had a lecture/panel scheduled from 3:30 to 4:30 about language, art, and politics in the life and work of June Jordan. 4:30 passed. 5pm passed, and we were creeping up on 5:30 when the conversation had to end because one of the three panelists had to go. I was with a group of people who chose to stay an extra hour because talking about Jordan’s work was too good to give up. I am SO in paradise here.

I’m heading into my 4th semester, which means I have to produce a manuscript of at least 48 pages of well-crafted, fully alive, breathing fighting kicking screaming singing loving wanting speaking crying poetry. No explication, remediation, hesitation or too-easy-affirmation allowed. Wow. Luckily, my mentor is Anne Marie Macari, who gives astounding support and won’t let anything slide past. The semester pretty much starts when I head home on Friday, so look out world. For something. I’ll be in my office writing, so don’t be looking out for me.