Notes on a visit to Pacific University’s MFA residency

Back from a trip down to Oregon to visit my MFA alma mater, Pacific University, to speak on a panel about “Life After the MFA.” I think the talk went well, and though I thought the audience would be 30-40 people, it was more like 150! My part of the talk included a lot of tips that I’ve been writing about here the last few weeks – but it was sort of overwhelming to try to sum up the last seven years of teaching, publishing, volunteering, and lately, working for the city of Redmond as Poet Laureate, plus tips I hoped would be useful to students about to graduate! Well, if you were there and have any questions, I’m here so shoot me an e-mail and I’ll do my best to answer them! I mean, I don’t have all the answers about life after the MFA – far from it – but I like discussing it!

I got to see a few old friends from my days in the program, catch up with almost all my former professors still working at the program, and meet a bunch of interesting, lively, intelligent students – some of whom I had e-mailed with or been Facebook or twitter friends but got to finally meet in person. During my visit I got to field questions about everything from how to find places to publish “geeky” poetry (I wrote a bit about speculative poetry markets in one of the Poet’s Markets from the last few years, in case you want to look it up) to how to put together a chapbook, how to deal with workshop criticism, how to volunteer for a literary magazine and how to plan for financial stability after graduation. I was impressed again with how much enthusiasm and energy everyone had.

Below, pics: a trio of redheaded poets (Mary Bond, Larissa Nash, and myself) – me with Joe Millar and Dorianne Laux – and posing with Twitter friend Killian Czuba…

And a final note to any of the young poets I have talked to recently – because I’ve been thinking about it ever since a young woman poet (not at Pacific) was telling me about crying all through her school semester because her advisor’s notes about her work were so rough: remember, the only person you need to please with your writing is really YOU. They (your workshop, your advisor, that guy who wrote that really mean rejection or review) are there for you, to use their advice to help you or to ignore as you choose, so are not worth your tears, not even one. Channel your inner cranky Margaret Atwood-poet-warrior-self. Curse if you want, but mostly, don’t worry about pleasing everyone. Remember so much of the writing life is getting back up after being smacked down, and going for the next round – it’s the only path to a sustainable life as an artist.