Billy and Barfin'

It seems Florida and the writer’s conference is getting closer and closer. Today I received an email about Sunday brunch and I began to realize that in less than one month I will be sitting at a table with Billy Collins. (I'll try not to blurt out all the secrets between him & Suzanne lmao)

The truth is I am nervous as hell. This is how paranoid I am-- I googled the names of other people who will be attending the workshop with me, of course some are professors, translators, most have their first books already completed. I am trying not to freak myself out. All that ever matters is the work, they could put me in a class with Jesus Christ and he’d still have to write better poems than me.

I keep thinking of what Rebecca wrote, how you must love your work more than anyone else. You must be enamored by your own voice. It feels so arrogant saying that but there is a part of me that believes without any doubt my voice is necessary. In the world of writing I am needed. There are lots of things I do well and lots of things I could be but writing isn’t a choice, it just is.

Of course then there’s that question about whether or not I am delusional and we may have to wait a good fifty years for the results to come in. But the fact is I am, in less than 30 days, going to read my poetry in front of Billy Collins and then I am going to throw up…..