Immersion and Post-Immersion

First, Congratulations, Holly! Finishing is inspiring, and yes, the fact that "finishing" is another stage, and is vulnerable as well as exciting.

Just got back from a 4-day poetry conference--intense, exciting, annoying, terrifying, exciting. After my first poem was workshopped, one that had already been published, I had to go back to my dorm room for a couple of hours and decompress. It got a lot of praise--words like "perfect" and "beautiful" were mentioned, along with some very specific, very good local suggestions for changes. So why did I feel like I wanted to go hide under the covers and never come out again? I just felt so raw, exposed--finally what started the tears, the catharsis, is when the cover-hider part of myself said, "It's hard!" (Waaa). I was happy to hear another part of myself immediately respond "No shit!"

I was able that night to absorb the comments, revise the poem, and go on to have another piece workshopped, as well as survive in fine fashion an individual conference with workshop leader Lisa Williams, and write a new poem from the exercise she gave the group.

So, waaa, yes it's hard, and somehow either the feeling of "nothing" or the feeling of being exposed both seem like things (like Wendy's description of the Descending Demons, whose cousins I know so well) to go through/past again and again. And I want to remember like what's on the other side. It's alive. Jayne