After the debacle with Raintown, I went back to my earlier position of “Publication? Who needs it!”

So, I’m not very happy to come to the realization that I think I might need it.

I’m feeling incredibly isolated from poetry, and I’ve finally added two and two and understand that when I’ve felt this way in the past it’s been because I have isolated myself through resistance to publication.

It isn’t the publication in and of itself that can ground my writing. It’s the attempt to take part in the larger conversation.

But, oh god, I’m so tired. I don’t want to think about submissions and picking and choosing and working so hard. But when I don’t, I don’t do anything with poetry. It’s either the hard road or no road. Am I ready for no road?

Maybe my mother was right and the whole poetry thing is a phase. I’m just slower at getting over my phases than normal people. (Oddity, I nearly wrote “real people.” Apparently, I think I’m Pinocchio.)