Last night, I finished grading and Macbeth prep (seriously, how lucky am I to make a living by teaching Macbeth? So lucky. So lucky that I’m actually glad that it’s been gray and mizzling and awful outside, as that is perfect Macbeth weather) early. And so I made my hot chocolate specialty (less sugar, a Peep instead of marshmallows — try it. You’ll love it. I promise) and sat down to watch Borat, which was every bit as gloriously offensive as people have told me it was. If I ever, for some reason, got to teach a film studies class, I would absolutely do a section on the mockumentary, examining what exactly they’re mocking and why exactly they’re so funny. I doubt I could show Borat (are we mocking another culture, or our culture?), but I could show clips. I would absolutely have to show Spinal Tap, though. No question.

Over break, I read a fantastic book recommended by my mentor/ultimate all-time hero/don from Sarah Lawrence called The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden. I read the book to try to get some insight into why handless women keep popping up in my poems, but ended up getting a great deal of insight into the creative process. I’ve recently entered a fallow period, a time of stillness, and the book discussed the essential nature of these times. It often seems to me, especially in the world of the MFA programs, that we tend to emphasize constant work, almost as an athletic enterprise, even if it damages the work, rather than waiting, refilling, inspiration. I wonder sometimes if the most important work we do is when we aren’t writing.

Word came yesterday that my manuscript was a semifinalist in a competition — this is exciting news. Unfortunately, that manuscript has now disappeared, as I gutted it and moved many of the poems into my first manuscript during the Great Reconstruction of Manuscript One. It looks like the semester break is going to be another poetry boot camp — the waiting will have to be over, as I’ve got a ton of witch poems, a chapbook, and a manuscript screaming for attention.