My MFA, one year later

Thanks, Julie, for noting that it's been one year since we got our MFA's. I'm never 100% sure, because it feels like about 3 years. So what has the degree meant, one year later?

First, I'll be paying $216 a month for the next 15 years to pay for 2 years of school. I didn't get a teaching job, like I thought I would, but instead got an ed-related job that I like (and seem to be good at). That meant a move of over 3000 miles to California. I'm not sure I would've done that before going to grad school. But hearing about people's lives there helped give me the motivation to do something a little crazy.

Oh, and the writing. I'm still writing and reading poetry, though I took a 4 or 5 month hiatus. I haven't submitted anything to journals since April. I haven't put together a chapbook or manuscript, but I feel like I'm writing poems in a vein that could form a nice book.

I think there was a little burnout from all that I produced while in school, but it's also difficult to write, have a 45-50 hr/wk job, and spend time with the family. So I put family and the job first, trusting that there will be time to write later. It bugs me to read about people who've spent their whole lives writing and publishing. I still think the writing suffers if all you've ever done with your life is write. Though I'd take the early success.

Bennington gave me a much sharper eye for reading. It didn't challenge me as much as another program might have, in terms of forcing me to expand what I read, but I was at a point where I sought some of that out anyway. And the volume of reading I had to do led me to grow bored quickly with poetry that isn't challenging. That, in turn, affected my writing and helped me think about presenting my voice in a way that isn't an echo of every professional writer/teacher out there.

That may cost me publication credits (although, with poetry, who the hell knows what gets you published?), but I'd rather write what I like then write to get published. And since I'm not publishing to keep my job, it doesn't matter.

There are some people in that picture with books coming out. I wish them all the best. I was, inexplicably, the youngest person in that class. So I'm giving myself time. Stanley Kunitz wrote until he was 100. If I match that, I have 72 years to write. 73? Wait, how old am I?