It’s been a month of lots of translation work and not enough of my own writing. I’ve been neglecting my novel, my short stories in different stages of completion–and my mind has been too scattered to comb the kinks out of my essays.
The only practice I’ve managed to stay loyal to, is poetry, especially haiku. No matter what kind of day I’ve had, I’ve set aside 15-20 minutes for that. Much of what I’ve written doesn’t have value beyond helping me practice my craft, but once in a while an image or a series of syllables will come out with that extra zing that may actually turn out to be “something.”
April is National Poetry Month. My twitter feed reminds me of that daily. As a couple of big translation projects come to and end, I look forward to reading more poetry. I also have two poems and one lyrical essay that will be published this month–a good month for that to happen.
I’ll especially try to read more poetry translation – starting with Wislawa Szymborska: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/poetry/
