Do you mean over the last couple weeks?

I started Field Notes #6 a few weeks back (I wrote down the bare bones on June 3, as it says) but because of its complicated subject let it sit ’til last week, when I picked it up again. It’s above-average polished for my Field Notes but I couldn’t think of a title so left it as was.

Dead Horse Point is about twenty-three years old (much younger than you?). I began it just before I went down to the U of A to start my doctorate work (never finished).

There’s a funny story attached to that poem. The U of A has a big creative writing department with its own program. Back then, that program involved very little formal training in literature and criticism. I entered the literature program at the U of A rather than the creative writing program because I wanted the more formal training. But I wanted guidance for my poetry, too. So I went to my advisor, who sent me to the head of the creative writing program. The moment that woman found out I was in the lit program, she launched into a lecture about how if I was in the lit program I couldn’t possibly be serious about my writing, etc., etc. This woman went on for about half an hour telling me I wasn’t a writer. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

That year, I entered “Dead Horse Point” into the university’s big poetry competition. It took second place. The lit students went wild. It turned out the creative writing people had been dissing the lit students, many of whom wrote. Having a lit student place in a contest usually dominated by the creative writing bunch was a big coup for the lit students.

Field Notes #7 I’ve been feverishly writing over the last two days from notes taken last Saturday, when the experience occurred.

But yes. I’m riding a language surge. Haven’t had one of those for a long, long time.

I’m curious how much of this has been built up and how much is newly creative. Because you seem enormously productive from where I stand. This one is old you say, but they all aren’t old. What’s the breakdown would you say?