This morning I opened my eyes and April was in the rear-view mirror. It was a good month, I suppose, thought the unseasonably cold weather kept me from feeling like I was experiencing spring, as such. It was nice to see the trees and shrubs slowly producing buds and blossoms and leaves in stop-motion during my walks to and from the office.

Three new book arrived in the past week.

First up is Patina by local poet Anna Renee, who I met at the Poetry and Pie monthly open mic night at The Sparrows cafe. Anna is one of the organizers of the event, and I am SO VERY HAPPY that poetry readings and open mics have returned to Grand Rapids. Poetry and Pie happens on the last Tuesday of every month, which means the next one is May 31, and I will do my very best to have a couple of poems ready to offer the audience. It’s been years.

Next is The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae. I heard about this one back in January, while attending the book recommendation panel at ConFusion. It has finally been released. so I grabbed a copy.

And on the right is The Antonio Gramsci Reader. I have been meaning to dive into Gramsci for a few years, so this is somewhat overdue.

I picked up the Monae and Gramsci from Books and Mortar on April 30, which was Independent Bookstore Day. As part of their festivities they had local poet Elle Warren writing poems in the moment, based on suggested prompts. I said “empathy” and ten minutes later, I had a beautiful poem.

In reading news, I read five issues of Poetry in the past week, which brought me to a total of 17 for the month, and am now caught up to March 2020. I think I will continue to read all the back issues on my shelves until I am caught up to present. Reading poetry at this pace keeps my mind in a good space and makes writing my own poetry easier.

I also read Patina (mentioned above), which was beautiful and heartbreaking and inspiring.

In writing news, I kept up the pace of a poem a day for the entire month of April, which felt fantastic! Just like April of last year, I focused on this one writing project from beginning to end, and came out of it inspired to continue the practice, though last year I ran head-long into several extremely stressful months and just didn’t have the energy to put to creative pursuits.

But now I have 30 new poems to edit, and this upcoming week is the first full week of the month, which means it is an editing week, so my goal is to get all 30 poems typed up and ready for review and triage. And that means that life is good.