Culture is the key to a great program
I flipped open my copy of Poets & Writers this month to discover that Pacific University’s MFA in Writing Program has ranked fourth among the top low-residency MFA programs in the U.S., edging up one place from last year. Congratulations to the faculty, students, and staff who made this possible. What is remarkable is that the Pacific program has only been around for a handful of years, as compared to the three programs ranked above it (Bennington since ’94, Warren Wilson since ’76, Vermont College since ’81) and the one program it surpassed in these particular rankings this year (Antioch, started in ’97).
My theory about the secret to this program’s twenty-first-century upstart success is, once again: faculty, faculty, faculty.
Continue Reading “Congratulations Again, Pacific University MFA” »
A website modestly entitled “The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog…Period” recently collected questions from readers about doing an MFA. They sent me the questions, and I responded to each one. Then, much like the trick where one whisks away a table cloth, leaving the items on the table in tact–I swiped the questions and stitched the piece together into this article about why and how I went about doing my MFA.
The piece begins:
The circumstances that brought me back to poetry, and subsequently to an MFA degree, were not common. In fact, the doctors told me what my wife and I experienced was a one-in-one-thousand occurrence. After the death of our infant son, poetry became the only language that made sense to me.
Read the full article at “The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog … Period.”
“How open to suggestion / they have always been, carrying nothing // with them of the past, content to leave almost / everything behind…”
-Christopher Buckley, “New Clouds”
I received a complimentary copy of the premiere issue of Cloudbank today. The journal is co-edited by Peter Sears, core faculty in the Pacific Unviersity MFA program, and the index reads like a roll-call of some of that program’s most talented writers: Arthur Ginsberg helps us see behind sight, Ron Bloodworth takes us into meditative country, Marianne Klekacz makes a Christmas-morning discovery of flight, Jennifer Whetham extols the sensuous mushroom, Beth Russell defends the curious appetites of the female praying mantis, and Abby Murray brings a glimmer of hard-earned compassion to a dog-eat-dog world. More than this, new poems by Christopher Buckley, Carolyn Miller, Margaret McGovern, and a host of other wonderful poets–some from the Pacific Northwest, others not–round out this impressive debut. A publication of Cloudbank Books in Corvalis, Oregon, Cloudbank the journal is accepting submissions for its second issue, including offering a $200 prize for one outstanding poem. Details for submitting poems, and ordering a copy of their excellent first issue, are available on the Cloudbank website.
By Robert Peake
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Also posted in Poetry
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Tagged Abby Murray, Arthur Ginsberg, Beth Russell, Carolyn Miller, Christopher Buckley, Jennifer Whetham, Margaret McGovern, Marianne Klekacz, Pacific University, Peter Sears, Ron Bloodworth
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Today I had the honor of giving the student speech at the 2009 Pacific University commencement ceremony. Here is the text of that speech.
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Associate Provost Wilkes, Dean Hayes, Vice President Akers, Ms. Washburn, faculty, staff, graduates, alumni, family, and friends–good afternoon. Today we celebrate our completion of the requirements for Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing degree, and a milestone for each of us in our ongoing education as writers. This also marks the fifth year of this MFA program’s existence. And if any program has earned the right to act its age, this one has. If memory serves me, this involves spontaneous tantrums followed by graham cracker cookies and a nap. At least, that’s what I liked best about being five. It was also the age when I dictated my first poem to my kind and patient mother. It ran seven pages. And, although I have learned a lot since then, today I would like to be brief in simply reminding us all of some truths about this program, and about writing, we all already know–but might want to hear repeated.
Continue Reading “Pacific University MFA Commencement Student Speech” »
I spent a rich and meaningful afternoon reading poems with fellow 
It saddens me to report that, with the 
