I spent yesterday washing clothes, mowing grass, pruning tomatoes, and finishing poems. The two drafts I brought back from Vievee Francis's workshop are now essentially done. I recast the troublesome ending of one of them--switching up the point of view, then suddenly unearthing the word vanity as a way to evoke bathroom furniture while simultaneously whipping out a thematic nunchuk. And then I slammed the poem shut with the voice of a toad.

I can't explain how thrilled I am about these pieces. I keep running upstairs to stare at them on my computer, as if I'm not quite sure that they really exist. Both feel so vigorous and original, and also new . . . as if finally my Harmony mind has switched lanes.

One of Vievee's conversation points is staying with me: the importance of focusing on how one allots agency in a poem. In her view this is a particular problem for women poets, who often soften or redirect. So as we sat in our revision circle and I listened to her talk about other people's drafts, I kept tweaking the title of mine. First, I typed "Gaze." Then I typed "Male Gaze." Then I typed "The Male Gaze." And finally I figured out what was wrong: and so I typed "My Male Gaze." That single word change re-skewed the draft entirely, and it gave my speaker-self a strange and aggressive stature, one that I don't often channel.

It's probably quite irritating for you to hear me talk about a poem that I'm not posting for you to read, but I'm planning to submit it to a journal so I can't publish it here. However, if you're interested in looking at the draft, I'd be happy to share it with you privately.