Here we are at a strange confluence of days and holidays. It's Maundy Thursday, a significant day for Christians; if you were hoping I would write about Maundy Thursday, head over to this post on my theology blog.
Today is also April Fool's Day. My spouse greeted me this morning by saying, "Happy Good Friday!" For one brief moment, I thought I had missed a day. And then he said, "April Fool's!" We laughed and laughed. It's a good way to start the day.
The first time I was aware of April Fool's Day was when I was a child, and my dad took the sugar out of the sugar bowl and put salt in the bowl. One ruined bowl of cereal later, that was not a great start to the day.
Today is the start of National Poetry Month. Some of us will write a poem a day, and perhaps others will read more poetry. For many journals, this month will be the last one in which they accept submissions before shutting down for summer, so some of us may resolve to submit more.
Yesterday I got the notice that my book length manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Wilder Prize at Two Sylvias Press. It's the same manuscript I submitted a year ago when I got a personalized rejection that was very encouraging and asked me to submit again. And so I did. And once again, I'm in the top 20, which is a kind of solace, but also a strange discouragement.
As I was getting my seminary application materials together, I thought about my other lifelong dream that's yet to be fulfilled, the book length poetry publication, the book with a spine. I thought that maybe this would be the year where that acceptance happened in the same year that I got into seminary.
It could still happen. I took a quick look, and my manuscript is still being considered at Copper Canyon Press and CavanKerry Press.
I am a person that looks for the larger significance, the signs that I might be missing, the ways that God is trying to tell me something. If I got both seminary/candidacy acceptance and book length manuscript acceptance in the same year, how would I interpret that sign?
I hope to find out!
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