Organizing your writing life

NO ONE IS SAFE ON AMERICAN IDOL (EXCEPT SANJAYA): You could have knocked my ass over with a feather when Miss Gaycrest announced the bottom two were Chris Richardson and Stephanie Edwards. Chris has been adored by the judges and, seemingly, the viewing public. Stephanie doomed herself by destroying a classic Dusty Springfield last night, so it was no shocker when she was sent home. However, the fact that Chris was in the bottom two means that 30 million voters thought hot messes like Phil Stacey and Gina Glocksin were better. The mind boggles.

As I predicted, Sanjaya sailed through after his brilliant performance last night, complete with hysterical young girl in the audience. I voted for him twice last night...seriously. I did a little research today and I actually started feeling kinda bad about how I've been making fun of him. His parents said in an interview that he's been devastated by all the nasty comments about him on blogs and in the press. He's young, still in the closet and trying to do his best. He is who he is, which is more than I can say for cocky ass Blake, emotionless Chris Sligh and Melinda Doolittle, who's "aww shucks" routine is even starting to make me question her sincerity. Sanjaya knows he's not the best singer, but he's also not the worst (hello Phil, Gina and Haley). There's no way he's going to make it to the top two, but Sanjaya is now guaranteed to be on the cast album and summer tour. Of course, I'm still going to call him Miss Bollywood (cause I think he'd like it) and when he sucks, I'm not gonna be gentle. Jesus H. Christmas...I'm practically becoming a "Fanjaya." Did I just type that?

Okay, how fucking hot was Lulu singing "To Sir With Love"?!!! She looked and sounded better than ever. She should release a new greatest hits or something in the US immediately. I'm sure a whole bunch of teens are running to iTunes to find that song. Oh...Peter Noone sang, too. Yawn.

In other news, Dustin Brookshire is now editing the poetry section of Toaster Magazine, a cool monthly online zine that features essays, opinion, reviews and poetry...much of it with a pop culture slant. Dustin is looking for submissions, and he's scored a major coup for April -- a new poem by Denise Duhamel.

Thanks for all the comments and back-channel emails on the new poems in Blue Fifth Review. I've actually revised After Adultery, so when you see it again, it will be a little different. I didn't like the verb tense thing going on in the first stanza, which I should have caught before submitting it. This is why I believe a poem is never truly "finished." I'm paying close attention to tense, line breaks and repetition in all the poems for Wake, which is still in the revision and sequencing phase. The collection needed a couple more poems -- connective tissue -- to tie up the first section's mini-arc. Those two poems came to me slowly, but I'm happy with them.