A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Eighty

My conference with Nickole was very helpful, and I am excited about getting to all the revisions we discussed.  Beyond this, it was also really positive me to get her general feedback on the work I shared and the progress of my writing over the years we have been working together.  I think I first had a conference with Nickole in 2017, though it might have been the year before, and she did a lot to push me back into writing poetry more regularly.  While we have only talked for about an hour each year, it has been a very important connection for me, and I feel as if she has seen enough of my work, at this point, to have some sense of it, and her positivity about the direction I am going, and about the potential of the work I brought in this year means a great deal.  I am excited about this entire week, of course.  My workshop is with Matthew Olzmann, a poet whose work I greatly admire, and I feel as if my writing shares certain qualities with his.  I know that it is going to be amazing, as has been the case each time I attended the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and I am certain I will learn a great deal, as well as get pumped up to do more work on my own in the coming year.  I am excited about all of the other events, readings and craft talks, all of which present a broader spectrum of poetic perspectives.  I know that is all to come, and I am excited for it, but their is something very special about working with Nickole that always feels like a highlight of the entire conference, and I am very glad I had that chance again.

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