I don't hate the South!

I got an email from John H. over at Kestrel asking me to proof some proofs of mine and to please hurry up, because they are on a tight schedule. The funny thing about all of this is that these poems were accepted for realease in the 2001 issue of Kestrel, which was supposed to have a feature on New Orleans area writers. I even had to write an "intro" to my work-- I rememeber it, because all of this happened the week of my dad's funeral and the week before my first son was born, so that piece of writng was so important to me--just something to DO and keep my mind off of his body getting burnt up in the crematorium.

So I proofed the work and sent it back. No hard feelings, and it seems to be a good issue because I saw the table of contents. Pictures of New Orleans and everything. And before he acceped the work, John H. offered me some exceptional feedback.

This week I also got some great suggestions from Blackbird about a poem of mine they have accepted. Gregory D. has been one fantastic editor to me--he's given me more insight on two poems than I've had from anyone in the last four years. I'm excited that someone thought enough of the poems to write so much about them. I'm in the mood, so I'll probably address those changes tonight.

The last time I got lengthy comments from a journal years ago--the editor was protesting a poem and said I reminded him of Quentin from Absolom, Absolom: "I don't hate the south! I don't hate the south!"

Whatever. The poem was supposed to be funny. I gave a reading to a huge crowd the other day, and somebody taking notes in the front row (surely for extra credit!) asked if I was serious in such and such a poem or was I using "irony."