Brown University

After a phone call today from Brown University, I immediately said yes, agreeing to come to school there this Fall. I'll be working towards an M.F.A. in poetry in their Literary Arts program.

I was holding out on Brown, but honestly I had wonderful offers Notre Dame's M.F.A. and Illinois State's MA program, for which I was offered a wonderful fellowship.

As readers of this blog will note, this hasn't been without a lot of hard work over the last years, and a great part of that is the patience of friends and family, and especially my wife, Jennifer. She has been through a lot with me, with a lot more crap to sludge through, I'm sure.

I must also thank Johannes, G.C. and Joyelle for what I imagine must have been wonderful letters of recommendation. It's so strange to have one part of your file that you have absolutely no idea about, but that could have made a huge difference. That these three were willing to take a chance on me four years into my Iowan exile truly means the world to me. I'll never be able to thank them enough.

We'll be moving there this August, and while we're really going to miss Iowa City, I think it's the perfect time for me to start school and get on with my life. Jennifer is coming with of course, though she'll be heading off to do Ph.D. field work for her Anthropology degree. We'll be apart some, but again, this is the time to do it.

Anyways, we're so excited- today has been an incredible Friday the 13th, certainly- and there's just so much to think about and look forward to. There will be some things to stress out about, but for now, I'm going to enjoy it.

Happy Poetry Day!

Since we've been living in Iowa City, which puts us at 3 1/2 years as of February 1st, I've been working from noon until 9pm, Sunday through Thursday, most of the time. The exceptions are school breaks and the occasional Friday to make up time.

With a Friday/Saturday weekend, my social life has been strange to say the least: people are rarely free on the workday of Friday, but I am never free for any of the fun things people want to do on a lazy Sunday. I've missed Easter dinners and Super Bowls, afternoons in the park and all sorts of other activities. Working until late has it's disadvantages too: never being able to make it to readings without taking vacation time (in 3.5 years in Iowa City, I've made it to Matt Hart, Forrest Gander, Johannes and Joyelle, Lyn Hejinian and Dean Young- that's all- It's Iowa City- we get amazing readings!)

One thing I have had though, is an advantage: considering everyone, including Jennifer, has been busy most Fridays, I have spent this time as wisely as possible. Yeah, sometimes I end up playing video games or watching TV. Sometimes I end up going to the mall and sometimes I can't tell where my Friday went!

Mostly though, Friday has been my Poetry Day: the day I sit down to read thoroughly, take notes, and catch up on my own writing ideas that I've been scribbling down all week. I read blogs all week, certainly, but it is on Friday that I try to really get into what has been going on in the online poetry community we seem to be a part of (as Johannes say, "glorified thing "The Blog Writer""). I take Friday as my day that I am not an employee, but someone whose primary interest in life is an art form and everything that goes on around it.

This has taken great dedication, especially considering that I took part in the International Writing Program's Translation Workshop on Friday afternoons for the last two Fall semesters. And by the end of those semesters, I felt like I was dragging and behind and unable to comprehend what had been going on while I had been in class. I wrote during odd hours, especially at work or late at night. I read poetry only when I needed to (like reading poets at schools I applied to). I kept up with blogs and blogging, but if you look back over my posts from the last 8 months or so, the frequency is inconsistent, to say the least.

To know now, that in some small way, this has paid off, I am happy:

Last Friday, I was called by one of the MFA programs I had applied to an offered admission for next Fall. After four years of applying, most of which was to the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop, since they're in my back yard and all, it has been a truly gratifying experience to know that giving one solid day to my "hobby" was a good idea.

But it's not a hobby as much as it used to be. The idea that everyday can be this way to some extent (minus teaching or other work related to surviving through an MFA) is such a wonderful feeling, and maybe a bit scary too. That I have at least one place saying that my faith in myself as a poet and as a person whose intellectual curiousity has led to considering language and all its trappings as the basic underpinning of our relationships and culture as a whole has been such a fantastic feeling this last week.

I'm not done though: of the 13 schools I applied to, this has been the only one I have heard from so far. I am going to do my best to keep my head straight through this process and hopefully I'll be able to pick the right school for me at this point. This is assuming I have an option, but if I don't, I have nothing but positive feelings about my one acceptance and would be honored to matriculate there this Fall.
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Poetry Day for me has been an escape to some extent, a double-life as someone who hasn't been doing what he's been wanting to do. Fridays are a way of pretending that I'm someone I am not, but hope to be. Fridays have been a way for me to distance myself from my forty hour week and keep myself from giving in to the feeling that I'd never get out of it. I had been desperate, certainly, to move on "career"-wise (assuming anything like that still exists for today's MFA graduate). But even getting into school is a wonderful step in the direction I want to go and it's a lovely feeling.
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It occurred to me last night that what had been a "hobby" for the last decade of my life, minus a few stints in creative writing classes while at Georgia, is now a "job" of sorts. This is great news! While in Johannes and Brian Henry's classes, one in Spring of 04 and the other in Spring of 05, I thrived under the pressure of needing to have something to present on certain weeks. I recall especially while in Johannes' class that my output was quite high, though obviously not all of it was stellar. I'm really looking forward to having to write, as right now, it's something I do because I want to, so, Poetry Day or not, I have to make myself do it. External pressure will make this great.
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For those keeping score, that's 1 acceptance, and 12 undecideds. I hope to hear something soon from the others.

Sick Confession or, Who Reads This Anyways?

Every school had them: the kids that didn't go straight into first grade but were in a limbo year after kindergarten. At my elementary school, they called it Readiness, which, in retrospect, was kind of a direct title. I knew some folks that went into it (as in, "Where's my friend from last year?") and some folks that came out of it and they seemed cool, except that they had this issue with self-esteem (which I myself have struggled with most of my life) in the sense that they knew they were behind people their own age, suffering from the same "Where's my friend from last year?" syndrome.

Of late, I have felt the same way, like I'm greatly behind on my career or something. I feel like I'm well ahead in life, in that I'm married and in a few years, plan to start a family. All that seems to be well in progressing.

But career-wise, and maybe talent wise, I feel like I'm not developing- like I'm behind those of my numerical age group. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's very easy to look around and feel that others are progressing at a good rate and look at myself and realize I am not. Three years down in Iowa City and one to go, I wonder what I can do for myself to feel better about my position. Certainly the idea of getting out of the current job and perhaps into school will *feel* like progress, but what if I don't get into school? I certainly don't think I have the energy to keep failing at my hopes of an academic career, or at least more degrees. So what will I do with my life?

I think I will keep writing, but what will be the motivation? While I'm sure many would say there is no MFA glass ceiling, they generally aren't the ones looking up through it and knocking. I suppose the question even right now is about what has kept me writing during my three years in Iowa City? Is it something I feel I'm good at, or have I stopped developing on my own? I feel like I've gone as far as I can writing by myself right now with the only feedback being the occasional Johannes response and the equally occasional "I like the poems, but they're not the right fit for issue N." While this all has helped me develop, I feel like I need some kind of dedicated time and place to write. And I'm not talking about a schedule or a sturdy table with good light. I'm talking about a place mentally where I feel like I can concentrate on writing and concentrate on reading more and more. That's really what I want to do and that's really why I want to go to an MFA program. I want someone to give me the go ahead that I can dedicate myself to it for the long haul. I want someone to validate the life I want to have. I want to plan something and have it work out!

Speaking of, I mention that because nothing I have really *planned* has worked out: everything has either literally or metaphorically fallen into my lap, from Jennifer to Iowa. While I would certainly say I've been lucky, I just want, for once, something I've worked towards to work out. Call it whiny (I know it is), but it seems like at some point, you have to make things to fall into place and can't just wait for them to happen. However, so far, I've been better off just waiting, it seems. But how long can I wait until I'm happy with something career-wise that comes to me?

Or maybe this is it. Maybe this is as good as it gets. This library job. This insurance. This life that pays the bills and helps my wife follow her career plans- maybe that's supposed to be enough for me and I'm supposed to just stop and enjoy it rather than hoping to improve. But it's kind of hard at 25 to give up and say this is it. It's equally easy at 25, I know, to say "this is how it will always be and nothing good will come to me," and that's equally stupid.

But maybe just a bit easier, eh?

He's Got Diminishing Hopes

It is on a night like this that one sits, looks out at the snow growing on his car, and wonders whether or not there is an end to this rut. Everyone asks which department I'm in, and upon discovering that this is my full-time job, is amazed that I work here like this.

But there's someplace that hed rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me,"
As the smile ran away from his face.
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place."

You always hear of famous people, shining shoes or washing dishes, who dreams of a greater life. Seems that's always how the stories go. But what of the people that never do make it out? What of those that stay in these jobs forever and never leave their little world. I know Jennifer and I will move places, but I fear my life will be this kind of pattern.

The director of graduate studies from the English program was by today. She seems uncomfortable, despite knowing me, and that makes me all kinds of paranoid. What to do, I wonder.

Will I ever leave here? Obviously when we move, but before then? Will I ever get to do the things I want to do?

I think I'm stuck.