Yesterday had many moments of "too much, too much." I was working on my editing assignment, but also trying to figure out the writing prompts for Sunday's advanced chapbook class, while also coping with the exciting but nerve-wracking chore of choosing poems to submit to the Pushcart. Under normal circumstances, journals and small presses nominate work they have published: the author just sits back and is happy. But some authors are also nominated at large, by one or more of the Pushcart's contributing editors. The latter is what happened to me: I got a letter in the mail announcing my good fortune and asking me to choose three of my own 2021 publications to submit for consideration--more freedom than the usual nomination, but also more work, and with a tight deadline. Then I fought with the NEA individual artist grant application, which has got to be the worst submission mechanism ever invented. Oy, government. Then I received and answered a flurry of emails asking me to teach or give a talk or otherwise do public stuff. And then, to keep life real, and also because someone has to, I cleaned the bathrooms.

Gracious.

Today is likely to be a bit calmer. Or maybe not, as I still haven't finished my class prep or unsnarled the NEA application. At least I feel as if I'm in end stages of both tasks. And tonight I'll go out to the writing salon, which is always soothing and revivifying. I haven't been able to focus at all on drafting my own poems this week: everything's been business, business, so I'm longing for a couple of communal hours in the zone.

I feel, as you might have noted, rather unbalanced at the moment. So many obligations, and the knowledge that more are looming: page proofs for the new collection, another Frost Place weekend to design, and now a talk about my diary-poem project at the University of New England, a high school day up at Monson Arts . . . 

Part of my staggering-around is linked to the fact that this all feels so strange to me: this being-in-demand stuff, this getting-treated-like-a-professional stuff. I mean, I am. I know that. But I spent so many years out of the loop, so many years holed up in my forest. I can't get used to this new treatment. Nor can I get used to these kinds of remarks on my poems:

I’ve long been familiar with Dawn Potter’s work, and I knew this collection would showcase her careful tending of the poetic craft, would express the singular view that is present in all of her books. What I was not expecting was this explosion of power—all of it contained, just enough, to keep the covers of the book in place. This is the poetry collection I have been waiting for. As Robert Frost said, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” Accidental Hymn is alive with power and surprise and thrums with the energy of complex life in the time of the pandemic.

 

—Maudelle Driskell, author of Talismans