Because the process of submitting this manuscript [my other manuscript] has been lengthy—which is not unusual in the unfathomable world of poetry publishing—I have also been writing new work, which I now have compiled into a rough manuscript that I have been tentatively calling Surburban Ode or Suburban Elegy or Imploding Elegy. I plan to use the time during the sabbatical to revise and shape this next manuscript. The poet Jane Kenyon once said, “Poetry has an intensity about it, which is one of its loveliest qualities, but that’s also the thing that fatigues you when you’re working on it. There’s a pitch of emotion in poems that you must rise to. Every time you work on the poem you must rise to it again” (in The Language of Life, ed. Bill Moyers, 224). The open space of a sabbatical surely offers a writer a wonderful circumstance in which to prepare to rise to that pitch of intensity.
May I just say that my new work, rough manuscript, big pile o' writing, whatever you want to call it--nightmare? arrgh?--is flummoxing me. I need an extremely large table, and better judgment than I actually have, I think. Yes, a large table, exquisite judgment--or else a match. A match! That's the ticket!
That "surely" in the last sentence of that proposal--that kind of sounds like bullshit to me.
