Category Archives: MFA

Congratulations Again, Pacific University MFA

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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.
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Reading at the Ruskin Art Club

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I spent a rich and meaningful afternoon reading poems with fellow Pacific University Alumni: Kathryn Belsey, Michelle Bitting, Jonathan Harris, and George Wallace–as well as eminent faculty member David St. John. The Ruskin Art Club played host, thanks to the ever-gracious Elena Karina Byrne, to this reunion of sorts. Afterward I heard audience members remark that they felt the variety and quality of the readings gave testament to the strength of Pacific’s writing program. David St. John kindly remarked that, to him, the real secret of teaching is that one actually gets back, through the students, so much more than one gives. It was an afternoon full of generosity and goodwill–not to mention outstanding poetry.

I also took this occasion to debut my new limited-edition broadside of the poem “Recipe for the Broken.” The poem was first published in “Walt’s Corner” of The Long Islander, the newspaper founded by Walt Whitman in 1838. Fittingly, the column is now curated by George Wallace. The poem and background image are printed on sturdy 8.5″ x 11″ paper as part of The Broadsider Volume 2, Series 12 (Poor Souls Press 2010), conceived and created by Paul Fericano. A limited quantity of hand-numbered and signed prints are now available for sale on this website.

More on Choosing to Do an MFA

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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.”

“Should I Do An MFA?” (and Farewell, Read Write Poem)

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It saddens me to report that, with the departure of the founder, and with the site’s editorial, maintenance, and technical needs having grown beyond the capabilities for a new all-volunteer team to take it on, the excellent poetry social networking website Read Write Poem will close its doors May 1st. It has been a pleasure writing a series of poetry advice column editorials for the site, and getting to know its thousand-plus smart, sensitive, poetry-loving members.

While my first two pieces, on how to learn from rejection and how to be a poet every day, will remain archived on the site, my latest response to a member question, originally slated for mid-May, will now no longer show up on the site. So, in honor of the first day of the last month of this remarkable community’s existence, in honor of the first day of National Poetry Month, and in honor of Read Write Poem member Julie’s question, I am publishing my final column in this series here, on my own website.

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At work, when I interview candidates for an open position, I always ask what it was like at their previous job. I am amazed at how many interviewees animatedly complain. It is a warning sign to me that, if I hire them, they will likely soon be doing the same about my company. And so, though it seems Socratic, I am compelled to respond, whenever fellow writers ask me if they ought to do an MFA, with more questions, such as: How is it going in your current writing workshops? What is the conversation like between you and your trusted peers, when they give you feedback? Who are your current mentors (including those you learn from solely through their published work)? What are you working on improving about your writing life? Whom do you emulate? What do you absolutely know you still need to learn?

Learning to write well is, to me, a lifelong process of self-education. Just as I consider myself responsible for looking after my health, and enlist medical professionals to that end, likewise I am the one in charge of educating myself as a writer. My attitude, therefore, played a critical part in making my MFA two of the most rich and fulfilling years of my writerly life so far.

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Cloudbank Precipitates Great Poetry

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“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”

Cloudbank Issue 1I 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.

Pacific University MFA Commencement Student Speech

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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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Standing at the podium. 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.
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Poetry and Productivity

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I would not have been able to complete an MFA in writing poetry while holding down a job as a technology executive had I not been a longtime practitioner of the GTD® methodology. In a recently released podcast, David Allen, my boss and the inventor of GTD, asked me about how the GTD concept of the ubiquitous capture tool relates to poetic inspiration. (That conversation begins around 16:56.) My process has evolved considerably in the past few years, from capturing phrases and lines whenever they came through my head to “assemble” later into a poem, to establishing a regular practice of opening up to the muse. This shift sees me capturing fewer individual lines in the moment, and focusing more on getting my head clear of work and personal responsibilities–by using GTD–so that when I do sit down to write, I can slip through the keyhole unencumbered into that poetic space.

The practice of capturing inspiration in the moment is nothing new to artists and writers. After the Ojai Poetry Fest Fundraiser, I had a stimulating conversation with a fellow writer who also happens to be a journalist. As our chat got interesting, he whipped out a pad and paper, seemingly on reflex, and began to take notes. He was “off duty” in the sense that he wasn’t taking notes for a news story–but it got me thinking that if one is, indeed, a student of life, there is no “off duty.” And a good student takes good notes about subjects that fascinate. The difference GTD makes, of course, is that it presents a systematic approach for what to do with those notes–including tracking any resulting commitments to oneself or others, and executing appropriate action and regular review in order to make one’s dreams more than just a scribble on a notepad.

So, in case I haven’t said it lately, thank you, David, for bringing this methodology into my life, helping me to bring appropriate focus and attention to the many different worlds I inhabit. The gift of being more present in my life is truly precious.

What I Learned in the Pacific University MFA in Writing Program

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I have been asked to give the student speech in the upcoming MFA commencement ceremony. Needless to say, I am honored. I have been meditating on the experience of having completed this remarkable experience, now from a distance of about five months, and looking back over material from my time in the program. One piece that helps summarize some of what I learned from the MFA is the critical introduction to my graduate reading. And so, I am reprinting it here, on my site, for those who might be interested. I have enhanced the text with some hyperlinks. I gave this introduction, and then read poems from my thesis, on January 12th, 2009 at the Best Western Seaside Resort in Seaside, Oregon.

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I came to my first residency, here in Seaside, Oregon, one year after the death of our infant son. That event brought me back to poetry by momentarily stripping away all other ambitions. Poetry alone got me out of bed some mornings, and helped me chart the difficult inner landscape of grief, often in the bleary pre-dawn hours before work. I sought out mentors to assist me in improving my poems, and, on the sage advice of my friend and mentor Joseph Millar, I enrolled in the low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program at Pacific University.

Getting to that first residency was hard: it was the first time my wife and I had been apart since the birth and death of our son, my first time in the Northwest, and my first real writing conference. I knew no one other than Joe. But from my arrival by bus in the freezing dark, throughout the past two years, at every turn and in even the most minute details of my experience–I received confirmation, time and again, that I was in the right place.
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“What Are You Going to Do Now?”

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Photo by Valerie Peake

As of Saturday, I am a graduate of the Pacific University MFA in Writing Program. Throughout that final residency, and especially at the banquet on Saturday, I lost count of how many times I was asked, “What are you going to do now?”

Some asked with such expectancy, I almost wondered if they thought I had been granted magic powers. I wanted to tell them about bounding over skyscrapers and shooting lasers from my eyes. But the real answer is far more simple: I am going to keep reading, writing, and conversing with other writers and thinkers about art.

Poetry has become a survival skill for me. And so, although I now find myself in the post-MFA, pre-first-book limbo, I will continue to keep reading and writing, with patience and determination, as though my well-being depended on it. Because, quite frankly, I have discovered a simple equation: the more I admit poetry into my life, the better my life becomes. So, perhaps I should answer instead that I plan to keep improving my life, one line at a time.

Open Thanks to the Pacific University MFA Program and All Who Sail in Her

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In the movie, “The Savages,” Laura Linney’s character finds herself in a cheap motel outside of Niagara, having an affair with a married man she doesn’t really like. She sits bolt upright in bed, surveys the tacky decor and annoying middle-aged man beside her, and exclaims in pure bewilderment, “I have an MFA!”

It is funny only because it is true that having this particular combination of letters after one’s name is not an automatic pass into the love, understanding, and recognition we all crave. Being raised by public school teachers taught me that our society undervalues education in a way that can be seen as either comic or tragic–depending on how tired you feel at the end of the day–and that teaching is an act worth pouring your whole self into anyway. It is the same with art.

After the graduate readings at this residency, a new student remarked that they were struck by the profound sense of gratitude present in the hearts of each of us outgoing students. This program is suffused with a spirit of generosity. Faculty and students mix easily, talk honestly, and work hard not to take themselves too seriously. A visiting professor put it succinctly: “usually people are either really good or really nice–but here they are both.”

If the faculty were priests, and this were a church, we might predict that they will reap rewards for their generosity in heaven. But they are not priests, and this is not a church, and instead of taking confession or quoting answers from religious texts, they have instead stood by us, in their humility, and marveled at the beauty of the questions. It is a privilege just to be here, partaking of something that transcends commerce, and politics, and marketing-speak: the deep words. The ones that matter.

And the rewards these artists and teachers reap in this life, for having faced down the human condition in their own projects, and hung in there with us students through our likely all-too-familiar neuroses, insecurities, doubts, and hopes as we face down our own projects–is the knowledge, all too rarely expressed, that they have changed–not only our writing, but our writing lives–for the better.

If there were a better phrase in English to expres profound gratitude and respect, I would want to use it. But all I can think to say is “thank you”–to the faculty in all genres, to Dean Hayes for believing in this program, and to Shelley, and Tenley, and Colleen, and, formerly, Amber, and all the interns, past and present, who slog heroically behind the scenes to sustain this place where brilliance doesn’t require pretension, where sincerely never lacks toughness–where people set out, with their raincoats and tackle, in search of the deep words. It has been a privilege to travel with you in this vessel for a little while.

Stephen Kuusisto on Listening

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I had the privilege of hearing Stephen Kuusisto, the remarkable writer, blind since birth, indict us writers for not listening well enough. He rightly pointed out that images have dominated contemporary writing, at the expense of other senses, since Hemingway’s time. He has generously posted the text of this insightful and moving talk, which he spoke to us flawlessly and compellingly, only seconds after hearing it in his earbud, synthesized in a robotic voice. You can read the complete text, with comments, on his blog. Enjoy!

Literary Coincidence & Greg Rappleye’s Figured Dark

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Because this is my final residency, I have a bit more discretionary time between lectures. So, Val and I took books and journals down to The Tenth Muse, a local bookshop that serves espresso drinks. Nearing the end of Figured Dark, I was surprised to discover the epigraph to “The Salt Cairn”: “Seaside, Oregon.” We had just made the walk down Broadway ourselves, just like the speaker’s family, “our lungs thick / with a cold we carried / through the taffy shop and pinball palace / to a carousel no one rides / in this ragged carnival town.”

Figured Dark by Greg RappleyeThis is a remarkable, confident, mature collection by a poet I am grateful to have met through the blogosphere. These are poems about cancer, divorce, and the possible violence–both physical and emotional–that linger beneath the surface of ordinary life. But there is also a striking metaphysical dimension, from the opening conversation with God to the angelic figures of great poets, birds, dead saints, and fire. Unpretentious and elegiac, these poems progress like the epigraph to “Elegy for Light and Balance,” notes on Winslow Homer from “a catalog” which point out, “Homer depended on narrative structures that would, just as they begun to suggest a normal unfolding, deflect the viewer from obvious and easy interpretations.” This is a tremendous collection, delivered, in my case, in a moment of delightful synchronicity.