Reading without a net

After I finished reading White Oleander, I didn't start another novel. Instead, I've focused solely on poetry—and since I made that switch, so many ideas have been rattling around in my head. It's hard not to have a fiction book in hand (maybe for me it's a crutch, or an escape, or a safety net?), especially because I suspect that my current series project is really fiction in poetry's clothes.

But reading more poetry is not only pleasurable, not only feeds me, it unlocks some creative key, opens a door just enough, just ajar, that I notice more images, that I find more fragments, experience the world in poetry.

Next challenge: Trying to remember some of it when I have a chance to write it down.

Tonight is the first performance. Trying to practice. Trying not to get nervous.