Today Vox Populi is featuring my poem "Play Clothes," which I'm pretty sure I mentioned to you earlier this summer. It one of the many poems that have arisen over the past couple of years from prompts at my Thursday-night writers' salon. The salon has revolutionized my thinking about writing, my thinking about revision, my thinking about teaching, not to mention my thinking about community. I have changed from an isolate to a socializer, and yet my poems are still an essence of my private self. Many of the poems that began at the salon, including this one, appear in the new manuscript. And I think they are strong. Even if no one takes this ms, I'm convinced they are strong.

It's interesting to exist at a moment of self-confidence. Of course I could be a better poet, and I'm always striving. But I know I'm a pretty good poet. Family history presses me to hide my light under a barrel. To be dour. To be suspicious and disappointed. In the process I may also kick over the lantern and ignite the barrel and burn to death. But today, on this Monday in mid-August, I do not want to be dour, suspicious, or disappointed. I do not want to crouch in a smoldering barrel. I like this poem I shared with you. I'm proud I wrote the first draft, proud that I revised it to what you see. I plan to write many, many more poems that I am proud of.