Just wanted to give you folks, you 500+ loyal readers, a hearty thank you and a heads up.  

After 40 some years of writing new poems pretty regularly, I am coming to a point I am calling the Hard Stop.  I will be completing and posting another 19 poems, and then calling a stop to the writing and posting of NEW work.

I’ve got a backlog of over 2000 poems on this blog alone.  In other files and archives are roughly another 2000, dating back to early high school efforts (say, 1974 or so).  Many of them — perhaps the vast majority — are not very good.  But some of those might actually benefit from a second look and more editing and revision.  

I have decided that this will be my focus for the future.  I think I have enough material written to work with for the rest of my lifetime, frankly.

I will also be working hard on submissions to various journals and compiling one or more manuscripts as well.  There are some logistical things that will need to be worked out around those efforts — namely, finding journals and presses that don’t consider this blog a “publication” — but I’ve dealt with that before and no doubt will figure it out again.

I will continue to post “newly revised” poems as often as I can, so you may not actually notice a large reduction in posts.  I do hope you’ll see and appreciate any improvements I make no matter how often I post.

Your loyalty and readership have been a great comfort to me over the years.  I think every poet — every artist — needs a great audience.  You have been that for me, and I thank you yet again.

I hope you stay with me on this next phase of the journey.  I will understand if you choose not to, of course.  

Here’s to the future.  I think the next 19 new poems or so will be interesting to write and I hope you let me know how you feel about them and about this.  

Thanks, again.

Tony Brown
May 9, 2014