I've been reading Anne Haines' blog from Provincetown and enjoying the details of her time immersed in poetry. There is something magical about poetry. I know it sounds I am romanticizing it, but at the core--not the publishing, the race for a book, the presses--the actually poem, there is energy there. The poem forces one to be quiet, to slow down, to read each word. How often in life are we loud, moving quickly, and skimming through paragraphs. That's what I appreciate about poetry, it's ability to say, "hey, what's your rush?"
A friend and I were talking yesterday and she said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that the best thing about an MFA program is the focus in on the art, the craft of writing. The minute you start talking about something other than the poem--the process of publishing, the world outside the poem--they pull you back and refocus your attention on your work. I remember once I said that a certain poet wanted "buy in" from the reader and my mentor said, "Your words are in a language of commerce." At the time, I was a little annoyed as it wasn't what I meant (but it was what I said!) and now, it's something I'm glad she pointed out. I was looking outside the poem and I should have been focusing on the writing.
With school ending, I've moved inwards in my thoughts. My current goals are not based on submissions or publication, but what projects I want to work on and learning how to schedule my time. I'll have no more school deadlines, no more needing to finish X by this date, no one to be accountable to except myself. I can be too easy on myself-- oh, you didn't get that done, that's okay, you have time. And while I don't want to be so hard myself that I begin to dislike writing, but I know I can make deadlines (I did it for 3 years in school!) and I need to ask myself --why is it okay to let myself down?
So I'm floating through the summer, which has been wonderful so far, and while I'm drinking a milkshake, floating in an inner tube watching the sky, or walking the garden to water my garden, my writing is the glimmer I catch on the side of life, the hint of orange in the leaves when they change to autumn. I'll know more where I'm going when the new school shoes are purchased and the harvest moon appears. Right now, I'm just "finkin' about fings" as my daughter used to say. Just thinking about goals and plans and words, it's always about the words.
