Rough week. Didn’t much feel like writing in the blog; didn’t much feel like writing at all. That’s the pleasant and torturous thing about a Poem-a-Day grind– it doesn’t respect what you feel like. Once you’ve made the commitment, you’ll do just about anything to keep it, even if it makes you feel rotten about your own abilities. Still, when you think you have nothing left in the tank, you surprise yourself. After phoning it in for a couple days, I have two drafts that I’m genuinely excited about. I’m working on my letter to Heather today, and for a moment, was tempted to include both… until I realized that both are unpolished and do all of the things she’s warning me against. And I don’t think I’ll have much energy for revising these until the end of the month. Only 11 days left.

If my brother-in-law gets extremely lucky and scores Rockies tickets, I fully plan to send my next packet from Denver.

Oct 1 - House With Chimaeras
Oct 2 - Expert Advice for Your Flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Chicago-Midway
Oct 3 - Expert Advice for Your Televangelism Ministry
Oct 4 - While Jobless, I Eat Snack Foods With Famous People
Oct 5 - Bayside
Oct 6 - Shit-Town
Oct 7 - Actaeon
Oct 8 - Box and Whisker Plot
Oct 9 - Falsely Accused of Being a Terrorist
Oct 10 - The Dog in Me
Oct 11 - Dumpstering
Oct 12 - Long Knife Night
Oct 13 - Claudius
Oct 14 - Ghazal Without Repeated Word
Oct 15 - Sick Herd
Oct 16 - Houses On the Street Where It’s Sunny
Oct 17 - Things I Tried to Forget You
Oct 18 - Owner of a Lonely Heart
Oct 19 - Expert Advice for Your Day at the Track

Obsession watch

Poems in which people turn into animals: 7. And in “Ghazal Without Repeated Word,” the speaker turns into fruit. I have got to stop.

Prepositioning: Getting worse. It’s leaking into the titles recently, though I’m using the excuse that two of the four are lines from songs. I have got to stop.

Robots: None! Hooray for self-restraint!

(I don’t really have that many robot poems. Swear.)