Robert Peake

I am through the last of the coursework for my first semester at Pacific, which means a brief respite until the residency at the end of June. One recent boost to tide me over was this series of video interviews with Marvin Bell and Pattiann Rogers. The cinematography is gorgeous, and Bell and Rogers have some interesting things to say about poetry and teaching. Requires Quicktime.

I did it - I survived my first semester in the Pacific University MFA program. Actually, I thrived. Some days, the prospect of reading and writing at this level is what kept getting me out of bed in the morning. Joe’s insights into my work have been outstanding, and I have fallen in love with poets like Li-Young Lee and Louise Glück. Grief and loss have been major themes in my work this year, and to that end I am looking closely at the tradition of elegy and the contemporary relationship to the timeless theme of loss.

So, here are some of the books that have surfaced - I would love any thoughts, suggestions or tips on other potential authors in this vein, great poets tackling the timeless theme of loss, scholarship in that regard - anything you care to throw out there. The books:

Criticism

• Max Cavitch, Ed. American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman
  
• Jahan Ramazani, Ed. Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney
  
• Louise Glück Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry
  
• Kim Addonizo and Dorianne Laux The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry
  
• Stephen Dobyns Best Words Best Order

Poetry

• Zbigniew Herbert The Collected Poems: 1956-1998
  
• Adam Zagajewski Mysticism for Beginners
  
• Charles Simic Selected Poems: 1963-2004
  
• Li-Young Lee Book of My Nights
  
• James Wright Above the River - the Complete Poems
  
• Stanley Kunitz Passing Through
  
• Jack Gilbert The Great Fires
  
• Linda Gregg Too Bright to See & Alma
  
• Adrienne Rich Diving into the Wreck
  
• Adrienne Rich Atlas for the Difficult World
  
• Marvin Bell The Book of the Dead Man
  
• Edward Kamau Brathwaite Born to Slow Horses

Obviously, not all of these are about elegy - a lot is about filling the gap in my education between a decent background in pre-Modernist poetry from my undergrad. days, and my voracious intent to bone up on contemporary poets.

Here’s to the wisdom of poetic crowds - long may it not be an oxymoron! Discuss.

Related Posts:

• Help Me Find Poets
  
• Surviving A Low-Residency MFA

Inspired in part by Lifehacker’s article on How To Study With A Full-time Job, I thought I’d share a little about how I’m surviving working full-time as an IT executive and a studying toward an MFA in writing poetry. It’s early days — I am only a few weeks into my first semester, but I have already made it through the first residency intensive and am drawing close to the second exchange with my faculty advisor. Guess what? I’m loving it. A lot of that, however, is because I took certain steps well before the program started to make the whole experience less painful.

With the exception of times I have been really sick (since sleep is my immune system’s best friend), I have been getting up an hour early before work every day. I started this months before the MFA began, before I even knew I was accepted. This seemingly obvious exercise has helped me keep a steady focus on my writing independent of other circumstances. The catch, of course, is getting to bed early enough. But with the prospect of writing again in the morning, this little programmer-owl is has finally stopped stalling at beddy-by time. Well, mostly. Tonight’s an exception. Really.

The most striking feature of Marvin Bell’s craft talk during the Pacific University MFA Winter residency was his closing remark about the three traits of the artist. Here is what I wrote down:

1. A disregard for convention
2. A strong inner direction
3. A love of challenges

I have been meditating on these qualities ever since, seeing where I can, for example, wipe the dust of adoration from my eyes and transcend old lyric devices. Then it occurred to me that our cat, Miranda, exemplifies all three traits in abundance throughout her daily life.

Joe Millar’s talk on the elegy this morning slit me open like a fish. Loss was one motivator for committing to my writing in a greater way by undertaking this MFA, and the possibilities he opened up in this ancient form - not to mention his analysis of the psychological and mythical dimensions - have my head spinning.

Rain lashed against the windows all night and wind howled all through the hotel ventilation ducts. So I’m bleary-eyed after a long day getting here and a night full of banshees, but fired up after an awesome panel discussion this morning. Here’s an excerpt from my notes:

In the Q&A portion, Marvin encouraged us to just keep writing more with the intention of knowing ourselves and our work, and Pete Fromm admonished that it’s easier to talk about writing as a kind of social consolation prize than it is to actually do it. Marvin closed out talking about writer’s block, which is not the inability to write but writing bad stuff and then quitting (the latter decision being the only mistake). He brought forward the idea, which I found inspiring, that it might be the “bad” stuff that needs to be amplified and made good, rather than cut out in revision, to make a good poem great.

I’m already loving the no-nonsense vibe.

Unfortunately, the wifi in my room doesn’t work, so I’m writing this from the drafty first-floor laundry room, which is only a hotspot in the digital sense. Time for lunch and to meet the writers in my year.

On the night bus to Seaside now, in the back row, face aglow from the laptop screen. I’m listening to the iPod shuffle my sister passed on to me as a gift - space to hold enough music to last the journey without getting dull plus a backup of all my MFA-related digital files. It’s a bumpy ride, and dark, but at least the bus is warm.

I spent about three hours in downtown Portland, between arriving at PDX and catching this bus at the Amtrak station. Most of that time I holed up in the café at Powell’s Books, enjoying free WiFi, good espresso, and being in a real bookstore. This seems to be the Northwest analogue to City Lights in San Francisco. Each section of the store has its own information desk and aisle upon aisle of books. Their poetry floor (!), for example, made the paltry few shelves of your local Barnes And Noble seem like the completely unsatisfying appetizer that it is. And I didn’t even have time to check out the used section yet.

Of course, just a few hours is not nearly long enough to get the real flavor of the place, but I enjoyed a few brief impressions as I wandered around downtown, with dusk and light rain coming on. Between the bookstores, record shops and cafés, and given how grey and drizzly the evening has been, I got the sense people spend a lot of time indoors. Layers are the fashion - seemingly the more they clash the better. Funky knit hats, stripes with argyle, the ubiquitous hoodie - post-grunge is alive and well here.

I will be in Seaside, Oregon January 6-16th for the first residency of the Pacific University MFA in writing. I just got the tentative schedule, and given that it looks like eight very full twelve hour days bookended by two full travel days (planes, buses, shuttles, oh my!) - I’m really not sure how much of the experience I will be able to write about on this site. I’d at least like to give a snippet from my daily writeups to share a flavor of the experience. And I’m taking the digital camera. But given this will all be new to me, I can’t make any promises. So, in case you don’t hear from me - I’m not dead, I’m just becoming a better writer. That’s the idea anyway.

I had a great time at the “Friday On Saturday” reading at the Bell Arts Factory tonight. The open mic was one strong poem after another. I read about a dozen poems, mostly newer work including poems from my application to Pacific. I felt well received and appreciated the opportunity to read as a featured poet again (I have been on hiatus for over four years). People hung around long after the evening officially ended, enjoying the coffee and cookies.

The series will take a break in December and January, so I will looking forward to more great evenings of poetry starting up again in February. Thanks to Friday Lubina for another great event, and also to my sister Lisa Peake for putting up fliers in Ventura and Ojai to let people know about the reading. I met some new poets and poetry fans tonight, and appreciate the community support.

I recently bent the ear of two students at Pacific nearing the end of their study in the MFA in writing. The program director made one introduction while I was still sussing out the program before applying; the other was coincidentally a friend of a friend. I asked both of them: What do you know now at the end of your two years that you wish you knew at the start?

The responses were illuminating and, though I take them with a grain of salt, I feel more confident and forward-thinking as a result of digesting their input. So, given my recent success asking for reading list suggestions, I thought I’d once again call upon the residents of Blogolandia for advice.

If you’ve done an MFA, even long ago, how would you answer this question? Or even if you’ve studied writing at the undergraduate level or through some other fairly long-term program, what do you think I might want to know? And to all you layman poets with an allergy to the academic approach: what do you think I should I watch out for?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions. I’m curious to hear what people really think, all with an eye toward maximizing the benefit of my experience in the coming two years.