Poetry and the End of vacation

My 30:30 is going well, over at Splash. There are several of my favorite people on the site have been participating, and the gorgeousness of it all almost had me weeping into my oatmeal this morning. In comparision, my Open Letters pales in prettiness.

Sometimes, I think poems need to be gritty and rough, like driftwood. The poems in Open Letters are meant to reflect that. I like to believe that they fit this hope well enough. At least, I'm not embarassed to share them alongside prettier and more thought provoking poetry from poets who've honed their skills. Seriously, there is even a sonnet. Someone posted a SONNET in a 30:30 - thats the kind of people that make me want to weep for joy.

I posted Open Letters #1 on Poetbay, the response so far has been lukewarm. Part of it may have been the simple fact that I haven't posted there in longer than six months. I think I've outgrown Poetbay, I'm ready to move onto forums and places that challenge me and make me want to write poetry. I'm tired of telling people I love their poetry when really, I don't mean it. I'm tired of offering critique where it isn't welcome and the critique forum is almost a joke. Sure, encouragement IS important, but the same comments over and over again make me gag. Maybe I will go ahead and delete myself from there, and see how I feel about it. The only thing stopping me is the memory of a good friend who passed away and the thought of the few good friends I have made there. But there is always facebook, right?

I think I should go back to the AAP forum or Penshells. What scares me is how easily I can disconnect myself from any place of poetry, how these poetry forums besides Splash don't feel right to me. I can't bring myself to go back and post. It might have to do with the fact that I know that at Splash, I have friends who held my hand through a lot of things. But that isn't an excuse I'm offering myself and whoever else cares enough to read this blog. If anyone besides me reads this, I sure don't know.

Ah the difficult choices I make... haha.

In really exciting news, I received my print copy of the debut issue of Touch: The Journal of Healing. I was published, and they have the first line of my poem as a sort of introduction to the book with a page to itself and my name under it. How awesomely cool is that! This is also the first time I'm holding physical proof that unbiased people like my poetry, and the first time in the past five years that I'm holding a print copy of my poem in my hand. I almost squealed when I picked up the envelope today.

Vacation is almost over and I think I'm ready to go back to work. I'm starting on the peds inpatient service, a sudden change to my schedule. I don't mind the change, but I'm scared. And nervous. And terrified that when I have to draw blood, I'll completely fail and burst into tears. Hopefully, though, I will be better than that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Sunshine and smiles, atleast while the sunshine lasts!