I’ve added some links to recent publications (click “poetry” at the top of the page) to include work from Manuscript #4 that I’ve recently completed. Finishing 4 (Kit’s book) has made me all the more eager to see M#3 out in the world. I’ve sent it out to a number of contests and hope to have some luck…I do think though that if it can’t find a home by the spring, I should do some serious reworking. From the best I can tell, it’s ready–but it is so hard to be objective. Maybe I’m missing something. Or maybe it is very niche and needs the right home.
Either way, I’ve determined that if it can’t find a home by spring, I’m taking it down to the studs. I think that if it needs to be reworked, it will need a new section entirely. I’m not quite sure yet what that will be –I’ve been writing Poems of Lament for nearly two years now. It is disappointing to feel that a work I thought was finished is perhaps not–but I can get excited about the reworking, especially if I give myself some time to step back and detach from the work a bit.
Manuscript #4 is my manuscript of lament. It’s my bleeding heart on a page. It may be altogether too sad for anyone to want to read–very sad, and very honest. I feel a little protective of it, a little afraid to put it in anyone’s hands. At the same time, I want it published–I’d like to mail a copy to a few of Kit’s doctors and nurses. Not a thank you exactly–I’ve written them that–but just so they can Know..so they can Know what it was like for me.
As far as individual poem writing is going–well it isn’t. I’ve written four of five false-start drafts, not much coming of them. I’m kind of stalled out. You know what I need? To read a really good poetry book (feel free to recommend). It will wake me up, and I’ll write some good poems then. Also, we’re moving house–and a new, settled spot is always inspiring.
So that is the state of the manuscripts. How is your writing going?
Renee Emerson 
thoughts?