Facebook vs Blog vs Applications vs 1965 Miles Davis

If you want a soundtrack, here's some moody jazz. I think it sounds like what's been happening between my ears since February 22nd, when the conference turned to shit, then the magazine arrived damaged, then the big conference disappointed, then the rejections came rolling in. Result of MFA/PhD application season: three MFA waitlists. There are both better and worse results than this. Somehow this result refuses to elate.

Not much to celebrate these days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpn2JdkTv78

How to Write What You Came Here to Write: An Attempt at Writing AT the Definition of "Writing At"

In order to write something close to what you really want to write, you must push. You must write something that sounds like something you would write. Then You must write more--you must get bored with the way you write, and try something else. Abandon complete sentences. Delay the settling of syntax. Delay the completion of the thought. Allow the gaze to focus, then dilate and take in unexpected things, and allow those unexpected things in, onto the word-receptacle. Allow yourself to abandon your original purpose. Let the newness arrive in its bloody mess.

30 in 30 Challenge: Approach

Once a season, local poets in Flagstaff, AZ, challenge each other to write 30 poems in 30 days. In the spirit of starting the new year off in a new way by making new stuff, yep, I'm in. Time for this. 

The 30 in 30 Mindset is not necessarily to write 30 perfectly beautiful poems in a row. The goal is to get back into the habit of writing often in order to free up the pen some--write even when you don't think you have anything to say, force yourself through rough spots where you would usually stop writing, try new things that pressureless you would avoid.

With 30 poems looming ahead, the pressure to be awesome kind of disappears, and I tend to write my best stuff with just that amount of pressure: write something, and let it be awful if it wants to be. The value is in the practice, the scrimmage, the skirmishing of forces--not necessarily the product. 

In a word: experimentation. In a phrase: invite the new, no matter how it arrives. In an exclamation: Hooray! A poem has been made! This in itself has value--the appearance of one poem usually signals the presence of others.

If this last year can function as any kind of lesson, the piece of advice Matt Larrimore offered me in July holds true: sometimes you gotta write through the yuck before the gold starts to appear.

Side note: I love writing prompts like these, wherein I am commanded to write, but not what about, and the quality does not matter. I suppose its more an exercise than a process then. And I could use the exercise. I haven't written a new poem since November.

Hopefully, this 30 in 30 will provide a double-writing-whammy. I'll get to write more poems, and I'll also be providing myself with writer-stuff to blog about. Process, instances, brief discussions with the muse, things I love in other poems, the experiments failed, the experiments succeeded, the way there and the there too. 

So I'll be updating more soon. 

-Hope (not bad)

Revision

I think we can revise ourselves. I think we do this every day we interact with anynone, or make a different decision than usual. In the spirit of new year, new thoughts, new ways, etc, I'd like to briefly revise yesterday's unfocused post about rumors, to revise myself a bit.

Goodbye Pork Pie Year / Meta-Discussion about Genitalia

2012, I don't want to say you were completely awful.

Here is Charles Mingus and his band playing the title-song. Background music for this post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sfe_8RAaJ0

Names

So I'm experimenting with names now.

Some I've found that I enjoy:

MFA / PhD Applications...DONE! Also, Three Lists

*giant exhale, not a sigh*

Woke up super early to mail packets before the holiday cut off for overnight shipping, glad I asked about it on Saturday. Mailed rec letter sent to me for me to send to program. Called around to places to make sure they had everything assembled. Checked up on rec letter submissions, everything is as expected. Called clearinghouse about transcripts. Checked bank account to see if the GRE folks (ETS) had taken out their money yet, samesies for transcript folk. Crossed off last items on last lists.

Everything made it in on time! The statements of purposes; the transcripts unofficial, the transcripts official; the single goals statement; the rec letters; the GRE scores; the poetry work samples; the nonfiction work samples; the combined-but-not-interspersed poetry-and-nonfiction work samples; the writing samples critical, expository, and analytical; the teaching assistant applications; the teaching philosophies; the teaching statements; the statements of interest; the CVs; the cover sheets and cover letters; the pdfs; the pdfs that couldn't be filled out electronically and thus were printed, filled out by hand, scanned, and emailed; the documents uploaded, the documents mailed; the documents literally cut and pasted on top of one another  and scanned (thanks Ben!);  the online graduate college applications; the paper department applications; the payments!

Speaking of the payments...

A list for those who may want to do this sometime: Total Expenses