Yesterday, immediately after sending off my final thesis to Linda Bierds and Heather McHugh, I found out that some forty pages of Heather’s missing comments had just been in the wrong mailbox. For a long time. What missing comments? Well, about six weeks ago I received a fat envelope of my own poems—15 pages from the middle of my ms.—covered in scratches and scrawls, yeses and nos, signed HMcH.

The comments were thorough, harsh and encouraging. And even when they sometimes killed the music I had heard in the lines, I could tell that Heather was largely right. I worked over the poems and then went on waiting for the remaining comments up until yesterday, when I turned the thesis in revised as best as I could.

But, of course, Heather is no flake! So with comments in hand, freshly home from the Poetry Northwest launch and homecoming party, I sat down and read. How I wish I’d had those comments earlier. But still. I have them now.

They sparked and lit a path through my work—showed me what must be done and gave me a readiness to dive back into even old “finished” pieces. And then I tried to go to bed. But in bed I could not usher out my poetry brain and so, like a monster in cheap horror film, it took over, and I was left scrambling for pen and paper in the dark flipping my cell phone open and closed to get a few lines down while my wife looked up from her dreaming unable to understand what had possessed me.

That mad dashing almost never occurs to me and yet I welcome that urge, especially seeing as I haven’t written anything new in about a month. So I’m back to work on the book. Sharpening. The hush hush of pages turning.

And in the meantime, I hope you’ll take a minute to check out my poem, “An Old Curiosity” which is up on Linebreak this week.