I met with the editorial page editor of my hometown paper, The Fargo Forum, this morning, and proposed writing a monthly column, The Poet's Corner, for him and the fifteen or so other midwest papers owned by Forum Communications. He loved the idea, and now it just remains for me to discuss compensation with the publisher. I expect each column to be a prosimetrum focused on local concerns, farming, hunting, oil and gas, faith, community, etc. Each to be about half prose and half verse. Not just my verse, but that of my friends as well, so long as they are on point for the audience. We're going to try to sell it some of the big city papers in the midwest too. I gave him Ploughshare, an entire book of prosimetrum, three sample columns, and a little bag of frozen dove breasts. Good meeting. It looks like it could be a great way to reach a very large audience and get them thinking about formal verse.
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