Monday, December 31, 2012

the new year















What I'll be up to in 2013:


Soldiers are coming home. Families and communities are welcoming them back. I want to probe the seams of family, community and the military for my poetry project. There’s a small phrase in a poem by William Carlos Williams that has guided me since my son enlisted in the Army two years ago: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” My poems for this project are about the “there.” A grant from the NEA will provide me with funding and time so that I can travel, do further research and writing. I plan to visit military bases around the country and compile personal memories, oral histories and interviews. My poetry will be about the intersection of family, home and community, where parents, spouses and children of returning warriors live. I will also be readying myself for my son’s upcoming deployment. I will write about this place and bring back news through poetry so we can better understand its landscape.
(from my NEA poetry fellowship application)

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