Julie Preis

Submit a Paragraph Describing the Manuscript

The manuscript referred to cannot be described
because it does not yet, in fact, exist. At this
unbalanced point in time, the “manuscript” consists
of nothing so coherent as to warrant use
of that specific term. It does not wish to be
defined as such, or to be scrutinized, critiqued,
or helped along to forge some new identity
it shies from. The alleged manuscript prefers
to lounge informally around the house, to solve
the crossword, tinkering with projects long ago
begun but never finished. Privacy is all
it wants, to tweak and tease apart its favorite themes
in solitude. It does not seek relationships,
not now, and if it chooses to remain unsung
and unattached, that’s no one else’s business. If,
through inadvertence, it has temporarily
begun to call itself a manuscript, the word
shall be construed as merely hypothetical.
The manuscript, as noted earlier, does not exist.

Having returned to writing poetry after a hiatus of several decades, Julie Preis is just beginning to submit her work for publication. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.