2015, Archives, September 2015, The MFA Years

On Taking My Coffee Mug’s Advice

  Last week, I sat at my desk, a pile of student papers before me, a cursor pulsing in the blank document that needed to become an essay draft for workshop. It was 10:00 at night. I wanted to be marathon-ing The Twilight Zone. Across the room, my cat raised her head. She was sitting… Continue reading On Taking My Coffee Mug’s Advice

2015, Archives, September 2015, The MFA Years

First Times, Community & Superstitions

What can I say? It’s going well. Well, that’s no good. It’s hard and it’s not about the classes. Only just a little, but it’s so much more. It’s the classes and when you’re not in class and when you’re in the city trying to get your shit together and the shit will not stick.… Continue reading First Times, Community & Superstitions

2015, Archives, September 2015, The MFA Years

The Process and Pathway of a DIY M.F.A

There is no way to avoid Emily Dickinson as a poet or someone who is studying poetry, same with Walt Whitman.  I knew they were going to be chapter one reading in the Contemporary and Modern American Poetry class. I know this because I have signed up for the class two other times with varying… Continue reading The Process and Pathway of a DIY M.F.A

2015, Archives, September 2015, The MFA Years

8 Lessons from 8 Weeks at The Elephant Machine.

It’s the last September Sunday night in Albuquerque and you can still sit outside barefoot in shorts and watch the super-blood lunar-eclipse, which last came around in ’82, without even a hint of autumn. I am 8 weeks into The Elephant Machine. Or is in 9? 10? Yeah, we started early. I knew graduate school… Continue reading 8 Lessons from 8 Weeks at The Elephant Machine.