An Honor

The Terrible Baby is a semifinalist in the 2005 Sarabande Books’ Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. I feel validated and affirmed and noticed and stroked. All good things for a moody poet beginning to doubt herself. Sarah Gorham, the president of Sarabande, jotted this handwritten comment on the formal letter: “This certainly came close. Please try us again next year?” Do you think?!

One of the encouraging things in the letter was this:

It is worth nothing that Matthew Lippmans’ (the winner’s) collection was submitted to the Kathryn A. Morton Prize several times before and was once a finalist. We hope you too will persist in your pursuit of publication and that you will consider entering out contest again, as we will be using a new set of first readers.

This is a much more encouraging statement than that of most of the notification letters in which the editorial stuff encourages everyone to enter again without revealing such interesting information.

And from another notification letter is this handwritten note: “Informative and Bold! Best wishes in all future endeavors!” Now how weird is that? My book of poems is informative, just the sort of adjective a poet craves. Is this a subtle attempt at saying that my poems are too revealing and personal? The old “that’s more information than I wanted?” Who knows? But it’s from someone who took the time to jot a note on my letter and that’s at least something.

So that’s the good writing news. I’ve still not reconnected with the writing I did during my residency. I’ve not been writing anything but livejournal entries and these bits of writing reportage. Soon I will begin teaching a summer literature course which will add much needed structure to my days. And I did “get a line” the other day—“closet full of penises.” I think there’s a poem waiting in there.

~r.

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