Maryann--
If possible, the best work/new work dichotomy can be at least partly reconciled by attending a reading one likes with an open mic component (which many MFAers disdain, for reasons I find repugnant; sure, there's the possibility of rubbish at even the best open mic, but the same goes for readings without). Pretty much everyone at the CSM readings--the regulars, anyway--will have heard my A-list work (as I reckon it, anyway), and they'll know I have a book, etc., so reading a poem that stiffs a bit won't kill my rep. And were it not for regular readings, I'd have missed Ray Pospisil, who wasn't terribly widely published in his lifetime, but who, as I've indicated many times before and doubtless will again, was one of the great unsung formalist poets of the last couple of decades.
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