It's been snowing nonstop for about 24 hours, with no more than an inch or two of accumulation . . . a lovely, lazy, snow-globe storm. Now, as day breaks, the trees spread frosted limbs against a pale-blue sky, and the neighborhood roofs are sugared like gingerbread houses.

I have been busy this week: meetings and plans and phone calls and emails--mostly Frost Place-related as we work on some new projects and as I begin to prep for the Conference on Poetry and Teaching. We've announced our 2021 faculty--BJ Ward, Nathan McClain, and Teresa Carson!--and we've made the decision to be online again this summer . . . sad but necessary, given the slow rollout of the vaccine. Still, the conference went beautifully last year, and I know it will be even better this year, now that we've all become experts in virtuality. Dates are June 26-July 1, and the application will be posted on the website shortly. Please, please, contact me directly if you have any questions.

I realized yesterday that the events tab on this blog is woefully out of date, so that's one of the things I need to update this weekend. I also want to let you know about a change in my forthcoming poetry collection. I had been planning to put together a new-and-selected volume, but the more I thought about that project, the more I didn't want to do it. I don't have a rational reason; it just felt wrong, and unpleasant, and I kept procrastinating. So my sensible friend Teresa asked, "Why are you doing it then?" And I realized that I had no idea. What I really want is to publish the new work I've been writing since Chestnut Ridge. So the publisher and I have agreed that this is what will happen. Jeff is a prince: patient and supportive, and confident in me and my poems. I am very fortunate.

I feel immensely relieved about this decision and, as a result, much more able to work productively on the next manuscript. For the most part it's ready; I just need to tweak it to add a few newer pieces, and now I have a clear schedule for doing that: I have to get it to the publisher by April. So I'm feeling lighter this morning, and downright eager to get started on the final version.

Being a poet and being a teacher: that's what I've been focusing on this week, and everyone's letting me have my way, and I feel a little bit giddy about it. But it's tax time, so undoubtedly I'll be dropping to earth again shortly, with a thud.