How fantastic to be part of such an exciting poetry moment – and so cool that so many people are interested in taking part in this. I’m definitely excited. I signed up for a full marathon, but depending on how it goes I may switch to a half marathon. I’d really love to churn out 24 full poems, though, so we’ll see.
My name is Mary and I live in a small town in Northwest Missouri, by the grand Missouri River. I teach English at Missouri Western State University, and I edit Stone Highway Review. I’m also an editor with Sundress Publications. I have an MFA from the University of Kansas and have been writing and publishing for years now. This town lacks a writing community and since moving back to this place, I’ve found it quite lonely as a writer in the area. This is one reason I’ve decided to join the marathon – to get that feeling of community that I find so inspiring. I think that reading other people’s new work somehow fuels my own creativity.
I’m currently going through a divorce. It’s been a bad year for writing because of some really emotional inconsistency. I allowed myself to take far too long off this summer and have realized that “keeping busy” is not quite as fun as I’d hoped. I miss writing. I miss how it makes me feel during and after. Writing is a good friend and it sucks that I abandoned that friend for a couple of months. This marathon, hopefully, will help me make it up to that friend, and to myself. My goal is to write NO DIVORCE POEMS, though I may end up writing some accidentally. I am working on a project that involves semi-found poetry – stealing some stuff from the profiles of men on dating websites. My goal is to get quite a few solid pieces for this project. Before starting, I’m hoping to have some titles ready to go so that I can just write from those titles, and my plan is to keep it themed, and to think in sections (how many poems can go under “Inbox” for example and under “Self-Summary” for example). And so! Hoping this will help me get outside of my head and be thinking of what else poetry can do besides narrate my own emotional state of mind.
Nice to meet you all!