Love Letter to my MFA Program

This blog post is a little late in coming. For the past two years, I've posted about my Converse College MFA residency within a few days of returning home. It has been nearly a full week since I got back this time, and all I can say is, well, I suppose I really don't want it to be over.

I have had the privilege of working one-on-one with amazing poets. Denise Duhamel helped me begin the program, and she was my mentor for my creative thesis at the end. Her enthusiasm and clear love of poetry are infectious. Sarah Kennedy, Suzanne Cleary, R.T. Smith; I cannot say enough about how each of them has influenced my writing in distinctly different ways.

As for the rest of the faculty, what a wonderful group of writers and teachers. Craft lectures in fiction by Leslie Pietrzyk and Marlin "Bart" Barton can always be counted on for humor and really good advice that can be used by any writer in any genre. Susan Tekulve's lectures on travel writing and nonfiction are informative and interesting. Rick Mulkey pulls everything together as director, and he gives a great talk on poetry, too.

Did I mention that the faculty readings made me buy lots of their books? I've read them all, and I recommend that you do the same.

As for the visiting writers, agents, and editors, wow. What a collection of people to meet and spend time with. I was only there for three days this past, graduating residency, but I got to meet and get to know Bruce Covey and Ed Falco, both fantastic writers and genuine people who spent a lot of time with us discussing the publishing world and the big question "where do we go from here?"

The students I've grown close with...let's just say that this is the first time in my education history, and I've earned a few degrees, that I feel real sorrow and longing for the camaraderie that comes with a wonderful group of friends. We will keep in touch, and we will see each other now and again, but that does not compare to the knowledge that come June or January, they would be there, writing, laughing, singing, listening.

So this is my love letter to the Converse College MFA program in creative writing. I didn't use specific details because that would take forever, and this is a blog post. I'm sure that it is incomplete, and I apologize in advance for the fog of memories that has come over my brain as I type. If you are involved in the program, I thank you. If you are considering a program, check this one out. The best advertisement I can give is the same compliment I gave in my last reading: I came into this program wanting a terminal degree so I could get a tenure-track job. I am leaving it a poet.

Friends with Benefits

Gotcha, didn't I? Seriously, though, my experience so far writing Facebook poems with friends has been beneficial in many ways. I've written fifteen decent drafts so far. I've shared my poetry with friends and family. I've involved my Facebook community in writing and reading poetry. Yay, me! But perhaps the thing I am most intrigued by is what I have learned.

My whole life has been centered on learning. I have never been out of a classroom, either as a student or a teacher, except for summer breaks and holidays. It is safe to say that I am obsessed with finding out, with revealing. And these fifteen poems have been the sources of some very interesting revelations.

Today, I made "southern style" cornbread thanks to my dear friend Liat who posted her memories of cornbread baked in bacon fat for FB poem #15. The image of the cornmeal and the cast iron skillet resonated with me, and I chose to focus the poem on it. That meant I had to research how to make skillet cornbread. I'm from LA. Cornbread came from the Jiffy box. I could not have written that poem without learning that "true southern women" have a jar or can of bacon fat on their stoves, that the grease should coat the bottom of the skillet, and that the skillet should be heated in the oven before the cornbread batter is poured in. It should make a satisfying sizzle. For lunch, my family and I had bacon, apple slices, and cornbread with salted butter baked in bacon grease. It was fan-tastic.

Thanks to Travis, I learned that a brass monkey is not, in fact, liquor that you buy illegally at Mike's Liquor Store on Western Blvd. and drink as you're walking down the alley in Gardena, contrary to what I learned as a teen. It is, however, a  brass plate designed to keep a pyramid of cannon balls from rolling around on the deck of a ship. Joe C. taught me that the origin of the "three to a match" superstition probably originated in WWI in the trenches. One cigarette lit from a match alerts the enemy of your location. Two allows them to sight you. The third gets a kill shot. Joe H. let me know that no actor speaks the title MacBeth. It is "the Scottish play," unless you want your show to go seriously wrong.

The image of standing in the mist of a waterfall was given to me by Kat, and Brent gave me the idea of a woman too stubborn to leave her house, even as men jacked it up to move it so that the land could be flooded. I have researched and learned about tattoo styles, Jimmy Fallon, Indonesian spices, Go Ask Alice, roller coasters, the formula for Silly Putty, and Mobius strips. It may seem silly, but I feel as if I know the FB friends who post a little better. I feel more connected to each of them.

While many feel that social media separates us because we do not have to communicate in person any more, I contend that it can be a way to learn and grow. Over the past 24 years, I have moved many times, and I have met and lost touch with many friends. FB allows me to keep up with some, and at the very least touch base with many more people from my past lives. I look forward to benefitting from my Facebook friends as long as they will indulge me.

Facebook Poems: The Beginning

In the past couple of weeks, I've begun a series of poems on Facebook, creatively titled "Facebook Poems." The idea is that I post a prompt such as "what tattoo would you get and why" or "respond to the word reminder." Throughout the next 24 hours, Facebook friends post their immediate responses, whatever comes into their heads first. At the end of that period, I take the posts and try to pull ideas or phrases from as many of them as possible, link them together, and I turn them into a poem. This process has been as fun as it has been enlightening. While writers always get their ideas from their experiences in the world and their interactions with other people, the end results are usually filtered only through the writer. In other words, the gathering together of ideas is usually not a public process.

By its nature, writing is a solitary art. I have at least one hundred poems on pages that may only ever be read by me. If a poet expects to publish in a journal, he or she must not publish his or her poems in any way because no journal will accept a poem that has already been published. I have long lamented this, since, as a painter, I can post pictures of my art all day long and still have the work accepted into shows. Posting on Facebook give an artist free publicity and, on many occasions, revenue. While I realize that poetry does not sell like paintings, it is disheartening that we feel we cannot share our work on Facebook, get our names and our writing abilities "out there," for fear of never publishing. Poetry is meant to be read, heard, taken in and rolled around, and shared. It is not meant to sit in a drawer or on a flash drive.

Writing these poems, there are five drafts now, has been a wonderful, freeing experience for me. I am getting out of my head and writing about subjects I would have never thought about in just that way without the Facebook friends who posted their thoughts. Yesterday, I wrote a poem based on the prompt "respond to abandoned places" called "Concept of Time" (any suggestions for a better title?) that examines the idea that every moment in time exists at every other moment in time. I've tried to write about this idea before, but I have been largely unsuccessful. I like the draft I got, and I like it because Kathleen said who she was yesterday was abandoned, Brent wrote a fascinating bit about walking on the remains of a flooded town near the Hudson (he even sent a map!), and Joe mentioned cities he himself had abandoned. I love the fact that I feel connected to these poems because of the people who contributed their thoughts and experiences, and I love that I am sharing my poetry with them.

Check out the Facebook poems, and better yet, take the posts 24 hours later and write your own! Wouldn't it be cool to read what we all come up with? Poem, flash fiction, photo; whatever your medium, I'd love to see it happen. Perhaps some publisher somewhere will accept my Facebook poems someday, but until then, I am enjoying my writing, and I am enjoying the community we create, poem by poem.

Sleepless Nights and Endless Days, or MFA Residency at Converse College

Trying to summarize a Converse College MFA in creative writing residency is a little like trying to summarize your own wedding: you know that there were people there, food and alcohol were enjoyed, you had deep conversations with one or two people, some sitting was involved and someone spoke words of wisdom, there was music, and you made bonds for life. There was cake.

Just as weddings can be a blur, this past summer residency is almost impossible to adequately describe. I'll give you the highlights. The poetry group had three new poets, all of whom brought new styles and insights. Fried green beans and "Redneck Burgers" at the NuWay were late night snacks more nights than is probably heart healthy, and several of us closed the bar down on $5 pitcher night. Nightly "recaps" with Rhonda and morning walks with Cheryl were therapeutic, enlightening, and, on one occasion, spooky. All I'll tell you is it involved a copper downspout and a fight between a bird and a squirrel. Marlin Barton's lecture "Reaching the Lyric Register in Fiction" informed us about writing vertically to slow down time and add depth to your story or poem, John Lane made us think about our "intellectual ancestors," those thinkers we are most likely to draw upon from our subconsciousness, and Rick Mulkey reminded the poets about "sonic distance" and "sonic intensity," the idea that how one writes a poem can be as important as what is being written.

We heard the Shane Pruitt band rock at the NuWay. The first incarnation of the Converse MFA band was born at the graduation ceremony, and we performed spontaneous renditions of Skid Row's "I Remember You" and John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses," among other songs. Life bonds were made with new friends and strengthened with old. There was thick chocolate cake embellished with chocolate shavings.

If the comparison of a wedding to a residency in creative writing still seems a bit far-fetched, consider this:
each semester, Converse MFA students vow that writing will be a major part of their daily lives. For ten days twice a year, the pen and the keyboard are permanently attached to our fingers; our brains are bound to the word.

This past residency was my last. In January, I have to complete a four day graduating residency, a lecture, and a reading from my creative thesis. While I look forward to the degree and the possibilities that come along with it, I can't help but wish that residencies would never end. Converse MFA students, faculty, and staff, I will remember you always.

Catching Up: Weeks 4 & 5

This semester is going by so quickly!  And just so you know, I have switched topics for my critical paper.  Instead of writing on the use of poetry in the composition classroom, I am writing on the poetry itself - doing more of a critical analysis.  This will focus on hybridity and/or pluralism in American identity as represented in poetry.  Specifically, I'm looking at Agha Shahid Ali's A Nostalgist's Map of America (remember him?), Robert Penn Warren's Audubon:  A Vision, and Louise Gluck's Averno.  All three are wonderful books - check them out!

Now, am I giving up on the critical thinking through poetry experiment?  No!  I continue to use this technique in my classes.  Last week we read and researched Warren's "Tell me a Story," and this week we are using Kim Addonizio's "Scary Movies."  Overall, this warm-up strategy is still working well, and my students are being exposed to poetry and poets they might have never read otherwise. Our in-class discussions are productive and continue to be relatable to writing in general.  Take Tuesday's class:  one student blogged his "story" based on Warren's poem.  It was VERY brief and had no detail.  We ended up having a good talk about showing, not telling, and emphasizing that showing is necessary in academic writing as much as it is in creative writing. 

I am putting off this topic until the end of the semester so I can gather data from the entire experience, rather than trying to force a paper out of half a class.  I plan on writing this paper and trying to publish it at a later date.

So...identity - hot topic.  Controversial topic.  And something I have been fascinated with for just about ever.  Wrote my master's thesis on it using Salman Rushdie novels.  (Which you should read, of course!  My favorite is The Moor's Last Sigh.)  Right now, I am examining the poetry mentioned above with regards to the speakers.  Each of them are living on the edges of several different "worlds."  How they reconcile, or do not reconcile, those worlds to form a cohesive identity is my area of interest. 

Liar, Liar, Pants on...

Week two:  poetry experiment.  So this week my students returned with their research on Moore's "Baseball and Writing."  Elston Howard was the first African-American to be on the Yankees.  He held all kinds of records, and he played in ten World Series, winning six.  A-mazing.  This is just one thing they learned.  We discussed how writing was similar to baseball in that writer's block is an "injury" one must treat, that writing is difficult, but worth it, and that, again, reading effectively is a process and a practice.

Then came Thursday.  I have all kinds of fantastic poets on my reading list for this semester.  These are writers whose poems examine American identity with artful thought.  But I could not find a poem that I felt was appropriate for the second week of teaching my freshmen.  One of the reasons last week's poems were what they were was for their "ease of use."  Establishing trust in my classroom is the most important thing I can do in the first few weeks.  No trust equals no results.  I didn't want to drop an emotional bomb week two.  So...I spent three hours Thursday morning searching for a poem about identity that was not too heavy, man.

Then, I found Glyn Maxwell's "Rumpelstiltskin."  What a fantastic little huge poem.  We read it.  Then they blogged.  We talked about lying, living two lives, privacy issues including OnStar and GPS, color theory, what nurses need to know about patients who lie and the reasons they lie, what teachers need to know about students who lie and their reasons, the nature of signifiers (!), and the relativity of truth.  Yes, yes we did.

And...at least 50% of my second semester freshmen have never heard of Rumpelstiltskin.  Seriously.

Tuesday, I expect to hear about how knowing the folk tale makes (or doesn't make) a difference in understanding the poem.  I expect to hear about spinning straw into gold.  And I expect to discuss the importance/significance of naming.  Most of all, I expect (hope?) to hear interest in their voices and to see passion for learning in their eyes.  How fantastic.