A quick prose-poem sparked by my experience of the 2012 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago. Blogged: vianegativa.us/2012/03/barbaric-awp/ Text:
At the academic writers conference I was pulled in many directions, talking and listening, buying and trading, mingling with 10,000 other writers at the world’s largest hotel. I watched my esteemed colleagues preen in the hallways and at the book fair, beautiful in their dark and denim plumage and expensive boots. Conscious of waste, I kept my plastic water cup and carried it from session to session until it developed a crack, and began to drip onto my hand like a squat penis.