Charles Jensen | Writer

It’s happening again. I’m forgetting what poetry is.

This happens a lot. I forget how to write poems. I don’t know what they are anymore, I don’t understand them, and I feel frustrated.

I become a very picky reader. I don’t like anything I hear or read. I think everything’s been done already and there’s no use writing. I get frustrated, anxious.

But in the past couple of weeks I’ve read two really good books: Pamela Painter’s The Long and Short of It and Neil Smith’s Bang Crunch. Both are inventive short story collections, both gorgeous.

I wish I could stick books directly into my head like a tape into a VCR.

I wish I knew what I was trying to say.

I got a nice rejection note from Ausable Press today that said my manuscript was very good and I should try submitting again.

I needed that.