. . . goal: twenty new poems this month. I'm on my way with four or five. Today is the 12th, so that should give me plenty of time to rack up fifteen more. Fingers crossed, of course. This is all part of my thesis strategy. Which is why one goes to school to get an MFA. Forget the degree part. Forget the teaching experience. It's all about having someone hold your hand while you unconsciously put a book together. Like physical therapy for beginning writers.
It was mentioned to me the other day that I seem like I've been writing for a long time. So I thought about it, and yes, I have. I've been writing seriously for over ten years. I have half a dozen published poems to show for it, and I'm excited about where I am going. Maybe the MFA is really just a rite of passage some people need. I was reading in P&W about David Rhodes, the long lost writer who was rediscovered and is now publishing his first book after thirty years, and he did an MFA which gave him pretty much the same thing it is giving me: writing time. I don't have those connections everyone talks about -no lifetime friendships have emerged. So this semester holds a really tight importance for me to cherish that extra writing time. After next year, I won't ever have that again.
After next year, I may be moving to Canada. Or France. Because let's face it people, there is a shot that Obama may not win. How can people be so stupid to vote for McCain? McCain and Palin are out there blatantly lying (stopped the bridge to nowhere! sold the governor's jet for profit!) and Obama is talking about the issues. Like education. Health care. The war. The other war. It is so irritating to see this country once again go down the path of least resistance. The path of reality TV and fake butter on popcorn. No point in telling them to wake up. I think I finally understand what my high school history teacher told me once about losing his idealism. He said that when you get to a certain point, it feels futile to care so much. The stakes are so high here that apathy may be the best path to survival.
Or we can send Obama to the White House.
Choices, choices.
Reading Rodney Jones, Salvation Blues. Divine! One of my favorite poets out there. His poems make me want to write, which is always a great thing. He also has this incredible lexicon that weaves in his poems, making me lament my own limited use of language. (But then I think of James Wright, and I'm all square again on that front.)
