A few reading invitations are beginning to trickle in, which is exciting. I've haven't done more than one or two readings over the course of the past couple of years, having been deep in the writing hole; so I'm looking forward to at least a small shift into performance mode.

I like to read my work in public, and I strive to make both my poems and prose effective in the air, not just on the page. Conversely, I don't want to limit the pieces to performances but want them to continue to function in solitary rereadings. This may sound like an obvious goal; but I do know of a number of excellent readers whose poems dry out on the page as well as many extraordinary poets who ruin their work by reading it aloud. I'm sure I fidget over this divergence because of the intense ear training I underwent as a child violinist: read, listen, play; read, listen, play. In classical pedagogy, the eye and the ear learn to become partners. One mode of perception does not consistently dominate over the other; rather, as a trained team, they advance a musician's ability to attend to minute variations in pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing. I don't play the violin much these days, but the ear-eye partnership has become second nature.

Anyway, check out the "Upcoming Events" on this blog. I hope I get a chance to read for at least a few of you this spring and summer. And if there's anything you'd like to hear at one of those readings--any of the Boy Land poems, for instance, or anything else you've heard me read in the past--please let me know.

Dinner tonight: sauteed chicken thighs with vermouth and fresh lovage, arborio rice, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes from the store (isn't that a shame?) but decorated with bits of wild greens from the yard.