Since completing my last poetry “project,” I haven’t written much at all. I noticed after finishing my thesis, I took a natural, non-stressful break from writing poems to just relax—it felt to me like that was part of the process of manuscripting: finishing and resting. Digesting the poems I’d written. Letting them grow a little on their own without my constant attention or fussing.

I finished a second manuscript a month or so ago. It came quickly—once I started writing again after the thesis, I wrote a lot of poems in quick succession over a span of about 2 or 3 months. And suddenly, I had 70 pages of work, most of it linked thematically and vaguely narratively.

And again, I’m finding myself quiet. Over the last several weeks, I’ve read fairly ravenously. I always feel like I’m never reading enough because there’s so much poetry in the world and I want to understand as much of it as I can. I also know that while working, it’s imperative for me to keep reading if I ever want to write again.

Lately, I’ve been feeling that familiar itch, but the poems that I’m writing are shitty. Unfocused, painfully executed…nothing short of disaster. I’m trying to find my next project because I seem to write best when I write in series/sequence. Or when I provide myself with an arena to play in—that’s basically how the bulk of both manuscripts was written.

I sort of know what my next project needs to be, but I’m torn in a couple different directions.

Anyone else? Do you write pretty constantly or is there a natural ebb and flow? How do you balance furious writing times with times of silence?