One of the things that makes me crazy about blogs in general, and poetry blogs in particular, is one of the same things that makes me crazy about alot of contemporary poetry:  “I I I I I….”  Clearly, I’m a hypocrite, because I’ve already used 4 personal pronouns in 2 sentences.  Although it is not the personal that so irritates me, it is blog as diary, blog as therapy, blog as billboard.  The place where people post poems without qualification or tell you all about their latest accomplishments.  As I see it, there’s nothing at stake when a person just uses their voice to try to get and maintain unqualified attention.

It seems in this web 2.0 world, we’re all trying to brand ourselves.  I know I do it sometimes.  And over the past several months, when I wasn’t blogging, I was thinking about if I wanted to keep this blog alive — and if I did — what I wanted it to be.  My favorite writing is at once self-reflective and capacious.  Much as I criticize the “I”, I have always needed it. I know no other way to meet the world, than through the lens of my own experience.  And yet that I hope, at its best, it is somehow larger.

So that is what I hope for this blog.  Since my son was born and I left my full-time job in nonprofit for my round-the-clock job as a stay at home mom (SAHM), I’ve found myself questioning the choices women have and the choices writers & artists have.  And, of course, I am thinking about the same social, political and artistic concerns that I’ve always had — only now, I spend most of my days with a pre-verbal little person who can’t real engage in the conversation (yet!).  For better or worse, this space is where I hope to create flash essays (ala flash fiction, perhaps?), discuss the art & poetry in my world, think through my emerging concerns about womanhood & motherhood, and have some fun with domesticity, mostly by sharing my baking exploits.  I may post occassional personal news or links, but I won’t post poems — that’s not my deal.  Although I do hope this blog will become a breeding ground for bigger better essays and poems that will find homes in the publishing world.  Most of all, I hope this blog & its essays will be broader than my own experience and that they will be honest, full experiences — not just glimpses of my best angle.  Anything less and I guarantee I will lose interest in myself, just as I would anyone else.

Okay okay okay.  Enough self reflection.  Onward, to more adventures in writing, motherhood, and life!