writing with children, other people's shoes & poems published

encouragement from novelist john reimringer on being a parent and a writer:

The child is an opportunity. Remember that in art, restriction forces your creativity in new directions—the restrictions that dramatic structure puts on a novel, for instance, or choosing to write a sonnet puts on a particular poem. Form in art is a restriction that forces creativity. If you choose to have a child, you’ve chosen to add a new form to your life. Be open to the opportunities your choice will create. I should follow my own advice.

~&

this week i started auditing a writing class online, Other People's Shoes, Persona Poetry That Fits. its through the rooster moans poetry workshops, and they allow teaching artists (like myself--i teach a class on confessional poetry  in may) to sit in on classes.

since a lesson is only posted once a week, it works out well with my tuesday night writing time. it has been good to write again (and i've even started submitting my writing again--i sent out to seven magazines this week! seven!).

i've always been interested in persona but only dabbled in it, so i'm really enjoying learning more about this type of poetry, and the writing prompts have helped me to be able to actually write a poem in what little (and precious) writing time i have each week. for the first persona assignment, i wrote a love poem from the perspective of a mug. it's called..."mug" (working title), ha.

plus, i just love having a good assignment to complete. its the nerd in me.

 ~ &

i have some poems in rufous city review's latest issue, at 2river view, and  a poem (from when i was pregnant with zu) on literary mama. if we have as many babies as we hope to have, i suspect 90% of the entire body of my work will be about babies.