My week

Hi everyone,

This was the first week of my new intention to post only when I have something to talk about. I enjoyed the freedom but missed the routine. This scheme is definitely on trial.

It has been a busy week. On Tuesday I spoke to the Rachel Donelson Chapter DAR in Springfield. The picture was taken there. On Wednesday I was interviewed for an article in OzarksWatch Magazine, published by Missouri State University, Springfield campus. The subject was my project to record all the voices of contributors to Poetry from Daily Life and my ongoing need to raise additional funding for it.

Yesterday I met with BRIAN SHIPMAN in his studios at Drury University and finished recording the introductions for the Poetry from Daily Life video library. I also received a tentative publishing offer for a collection of poems I co-wrote with another poet. During the week I wrote a new ending for a story that an editor at a different house liked, except for the original ending. I welcomed a number of new columns for the weekly newspaper editions. I now have more than twenty edited, ready-to-publish columns on hand, enough to extend through the first weekend in July and enough additional columns promised by others to complete my term as Missouri Poet Laureate at the end of September.

This morning I received the link to the Winter issue of California Reader, a publication of California Reading Association. I have an article in it titled “Notes from a Poet: Why it is Important to Teach Poetry.”

At 11:00 today I have a semiannual appointment to check my heart monitor. I’ll spend part of the day paying bills and some of it packing. Tomorrow a new adventure begins. More about that later.