Another Prince chapbook? Yes. Yes that is happening.
YAAAAASSSSSSSS!
Don’t worry. I’m not off the deep end. I mean, I don’t think I am. I just really really really keep finding myself inspired by Prince during tough times and earlier this summer I wrote a long poem, in 17 parts, influenced by both going through an acute reaction to some medical issues and the Prince song “17 Days” (which is the B-side to “When Doves Cry,” for those of you who might not be like completely obsessed).
I’d heard the song many times before I heard it for what I feel like was the first time at AWP in Minneapolis at the Prince Purple Poetry Party, where poets read Prince poems and we danced to Prince music and I met lots of awesome people and heard poetry that I can never forget. And when “17 Days” came on, it was this revelatory experience. I think we all have that at some point with a song.
Anyway, this long poem. I wrote it. I subbed it around.
Thing that happened:
Editor: Did you write this at AWP?
Me: Actually I wrote this three days ago in a manic rage.
Honesty is the best policy, when someone is thinking about publishing you. I think. Anyway, I got some great feedback from both critique partners and publishers that said “almost” (including the editor who asked me when I wrote the piece — THANK YOU). And then I revised and revised and sent it to Choose the Sword Press who claim to have cigar-smoking unicorns on staff and, let’s be real, Prince and unicorns kind of go hand-in-hand.
I don’t have a release date yet. But I’ll let you know when I know. 17 DAYS the chapbook is something of a B-Side, or perhaps a sequel, to PRAY, PRAY, PRAY (coming out from Porkbelly Press in in October).
I feel very lucky to be publishing another book, especially with Choose the Sword, especially on a topic that I hope I haven’t exhausted (a full-length things-I-wrote-to-Prince collection may be inevitable at this point), especially just as a human person who is having some great opportunities in her life right now.
Sometimes beautiful things come from the darkest places. Thanks to Prince (and of course all of my people, poets and otherwise) for helping me find the much-needed silver linings.
