finding an identity

It hasn't been easy getting back here, with all kinds of email account problems.

After the mfa residency, I've been curious about my own reaction to being there.  First, I was a student, but I felt more of a connection with the several faculty I knew than with the other students.  That feeling was peculiar, and I'm still working on it.  I do understand it because I was a faculty member for 43 years, and it has been 46 years since I was officially a student.  I was fumbling for an identity in the mfa program, and I managed to find one by the time the residency ended.

The kindest move, the one that eventually helped me the most, was a little acknowledgement from Craig Lesley, who taught at PSU during my last several years there.  The residency had been going on for a couple of days, and he came up to me during one of the moments before one of the faculty readings when everyone was milling around, and said very quietly, "I've heard people say they're glad you're here."  That doesn't sound like much, but it really resonated with me, like an echo in a big cave.

Another thing that helped were my two "suite mates," Frank and Fred, men "of a similar generation," as an mfa administrator named us.

Now on to the second packet.  I'm reading Robin Robertson's Swithering, Mary Jo Bang's The Eye Like a Strange Balloon, and Lucie Brock-Broido's The Master Letters--all three comprise a big challenge, each for a different reason.  The first has lots of Scots dialect, the second is totally ekphrastic, and the third is just, to me, obscure.  But it's my list, and like Popeye says, "You've buttered your bread,  now lie in it."

After a 10-day pause

OK, so I haven't written here since June 25th, but I've written 5 poems, read three books, written three reading commentaries, along with a substantial cover letter.  So there.  I just finished the cover letter, so I declare myself Independent of the first packet until I send it off to Kwame by email on July 9th.

In preparing to work on the next packet, I've been reading Christian Wiman's book of essays, Ambition and Survival:  Becoming a Poet, and I'm disappointed.  I thought I'd find something instructive; after all, he edits Poetry, and I expected this collection to be something like Louise Gluck (excuse the lack of umlaut) or William Stafford in saying how they came to poetry and giving a sense of vocation.  But I don't find it in Wiman.

After Wiman, the next three books on my list of twenty are Robin Robertson, Swithering; Mary Jo Bang, The Eye Like a Strange Balloon; and Lucie Brock-Broido, The Master Letters.  I'll see what I can do with them.

After this, I'm taking the day off.

The day after

I don't think I wrote anything yesterday; I was busy packing and getting home.  I drove a young violin repair man to a youth hostel in Northwest Portland, and just as I let him off, I remembered that I left my black leather, zippered shave kit beside the sink in 304 Burlingham Hall, Pacific University.  It has my shaving mug, razor, brush, beard trimmer, fingernail clippers, little scissors, toothbrush, shampoo, and God knows what else in it.  I emailed one of the staff members at the U. and asked her for help.  Much later in the day I received a really terse note:  "I'll look for it and let you know."  I have heard nothing. Gulp.  Maybe I'll have to go totally shaggy and unkempt for the foreseeable future.  I'm ready to drive back out there and get it if the staff people find it.  I'm not drumming up much hope so far.

I've found my way into the three books I have to read, and I've got three drafts of poems so far.   I see the books connecting up, so the reviews shouldn't be too hard to write, but I really need to get on with making poems.  All for a while, I expect.

The party's over

The last poetry craft talk was this morning, and was it ever a beauty.  Ellen Bass talked about the difference between Sentiment and Sentimentality and how we need to risk sentimentality and achieve sentiment.  The graduation and the banquet are now over.  Frank, one of my two suite mates, has already left for Portland.  So the residency is finished.  I only need to pack the car and drive back to Portland, leaving a young man who repairs violins in Santa Fe at a youth hostel in Northwest Portland just a few blocks from my son's apartment.  When I get back, I'll need to upload my residency review file on Moodle, and I'll be totally clear and ready to look to the next two weeks for 5 poems, three book reviews of books I haven't read, and a significant cover letter.  Yow!

I'm tired, and I need to finish packing tonight, including the computer on which I have written this blog.

What's next?

I've almost made it through boot camp.  Home tomorrow.  Whew!  I have yet to format my 12 residency reviews of craft talks, panels, and classes, but I have a free hour and a half this afternoon before the graduation ceremony and reception, so that'll be the time to do it.  Still, I'm half sad about the 10 days being just about over.

This residency has been a good experience, and I think it's just the right length.  If it were another 5 days beyond today,  I don't think I'd make it.  I think probably that's true for a number of the faculty.  I don't think it's true for Marvin Bell, who I expect to go on forever.  He sits at lunch with other faculty and students and tells story after story--and laughs and laughs.  Isn't that fine?

Time for me to make a move.  I want to shower and scamble, get decent, and have eggs for breakfast.

Fallen behind (surprise?)

I've fallen behind.  My responsibility, after being in craft lectures, panels, and classes is to write up a page or so of a residency review, so that I have at least 12 by the end of the week and submit them within a week of the end of the residency to the MFA office.  By writing drafts of two last night, I now have nine.  The techniques of presentation in craft lectures range from traditional argument with demonstrations of proof in particular poems on handouts, to collages and illustration on large screens.  Sometimes they're just not so easy to capture in words, which are supposed to be my special medium.  (Outside my window, I see a long line of football players heading north to the gym for a training session.  The weather is cloudy and cool, and they're progressing slowly.)  But I occasionally get distracted by other things.

Workshops were finished yesterday, so the rhythm of the week has changed; classes, craft talks, and readings remain for our last regular full day.  Tomorrow there are things like graduating student readings, and the graduation ceremony and reception, along with a buffet dinner outside.

Yesterday, I met with Kwame Dawes, my advisor, who set up 5 deadlines for sending him the cover letters, book reviews, poems, and revisions that will constitute the main part of the correspondence semester, which lasts from the time I get home Sunday till November 19.  So yesterday, I got a full picture:  a cover letter, 5 poems, and three reviews of books I haven't yet read are due on July 6.  Hmm.  The big salmon feed on Anderson Island is July 7, and we'll be there.  It's also Mary's birthday.

Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage gave a craft lecture yesterday.  As he was standing there by himself and looking uncomfortable, I approached him and told him how Lesley, our daughter, enjoyed his PBS program when she was very small a long time ago.  He was pleased, more than just pleased; his whole body reacted.

My morning alarm just went off.  I must go.  More later.

Advisor for the semester and evening readings

Tonight everyone found out who their advisor will be for the semester, and there was big excitement.  Mine will be Kwame Dawes, the new editor of the Prairie Schooner.  I think he'll be tough but straight. That'll be okay with me.  One young man who didn't put Kwame on his list will still have him for an advisor, and he is sorely disappointed.  I tried to tell him it will be okay, but he wouldn't be consoled.  I think he's talking himself into a corner he might not be able to get out of--complaining loudly and a lot. He came here from Florida to study.  He's very young.  I hope he gets his head on straight, or he'll have a miserable time.

At the reading Marvin Bell was great, as always, and Elinor Langer read part of her book in progress on the last queen of Hawaii and the story of the US colonizing it.  The story, as far as she read, was chilling.

There was a panel this morning in which one guy said something I think is really important.  "Touch the work every day.  Either you're a writer or you're not.  If you come home drunk, touch the writing or get a zero for the day.  And if you're a good Catholic, you know that you got a zero it will be there for eternity and nothing can make up for it."

Short entry tonight partly because I already did one earlier today.