Episode 399: Dry Spell?

I've realised that for the past couple of days, I just can't seem to follow through with the poems that I start. I had to abandon a villanelle on Saturday, and tonight, I've tried to write and abandoned both a ghazal and a villanelle. It's mildly annoying to not be able to flesh out the idea fully, especially this villanelle, as it seemed rather promising initially. It may well be salvageable, but I think I'll need to sleep on it. This is all probably to do with the fact that I've been particularly under the weather these past few days, and my brain is calling it quits. I hope it gets its act together by Wednesday though. Attended the Robert Gray reading this afternoon with Dan, and it was kind of a weird experience. Gray read out a commissioned piece that was still a work-in-progress, and then invited us to critique it. Excuse me? Pass judgement on an established poet's work in a public forum when I'm practically a nobody in comparison? I don't think I'm up to doing that. That said, I did enjoy select moments in the poem while disliking it on the whole. I would be more specific, except I somehow managed to lose the photocopy Michael Hulse handed out. The perils of sticking things in your back pocket and having too skinny a butt to keep them there.