the story so far

I write all the posts for Dare I Read in a Word file before I post them. The word count, as I write, has topped 30,000.

Does DIR have regular readers? I think so. Two.

This month Simon DeDeo shut down rhubarb is susan, the blog in which for each post he writes a critical essay about a poem published in an online journal. I wanted my “Viewing and Reviewing” links to be idiosyncratic takes on creative works, more personal than not. I included ris because I liked the idea so much (thoughtful responses to very contemporary poetry!) and because I liked Simon’s writing. I hope a reader or two found his site via DIR.

In his farewell post Simon says, “The main reason I'm leaving [the blog world] is that my efforts increasingly feel like shouting into a void.”

Sounds like a quote attributed to Don Marquis, “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

God watches the petal fall and hears the thunder when it strikes the earth, the boom of the echo off the canyon walls. What could be more important than talking to God?

Since February at DIR I’ve worked my way through my junior high and high school diaries. I’m now exploring what I read (or what I bothered to note about what I read) in 1985. I was Depressed, poor, living at home, lonesome, and working my brain. I was reading, writing, and trying to think. If I could go back and change things to make that Glenn’s life easier I would. But I was making something. And here I am taking up that material and making something new out of it. 30,000 words in five months? I’ve thought idly that I might be making a book. Would that matter?