So I got a call on Friday morning to set up an interview for Virginia Tech's MFA program for poetry. I have no idea what to expect. Of course I'm googling to find out how these types of interviews might go. I like their program, love their faculty, think the location is pretty cool too. Who knows how this will go...I'm ready to find out!
So I've been reading like crazy. Last week I read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and I just finished A Mercy. This woman can write! Oh my goodness...I literally end up breathless on the last page. I read the last page of A Mercy over and over just letting it all sink in. I don't know how she does it. I think I can appreciate her work even more since taking a 19th Century African American Lit class last semester, specifically about slave narratives. A Mercy read just like a slave narrative. Reading Morrison, even though I'm a poet, inspires me and makes Indiana's offer so appealing since I'll get to do the MA in African American Studies (focused on black lit, it seems) along with the MFA. I think if I get the Grad. Scholars fellowship at Indiana, I'm going. That's one year without teaching and up to $25,000 funding for that year. I should find out if that worked out very soon. I think that will clinch it for me. The only school offering that much funding would have been Michener and I didn't get in there. Without the fellowship...I don't know and I'll be doing a lot of traveling trying to figure it out, I think.
UGH...Toni Morrison writes so smart. I want to write smart too. I'm going to start reading Sula as soon as I come down off of the high of her last book. I was totally not expecting to have such a reaction to her. I would love to take a class that was only about her and her works. She's got enough stuff written and enough complexity to warrant an entire course on her. She is hands down my favorite fiction writer right now.
On the poetry front...my poetry professor/mentor's new book is out and it is on the way in the mail to me right now!!!!!!!! SO excited. I love her, I love her, I love her! I'm thinking of flying back to where I did school to catch one of her readings.
Senior or Principal Writer gig!
1 month ago
2 comments:
Hey Unsaid! (came here by way of the MFA blog =)
I totally took a class that was all on Toni Morrison in my undergrad and it was a.m.a.z.i.n.g!!! We read all of her novels (though I didn't finish two of them with my reading load at the time) and my professor went into all these discussions about Freud and psychoanalysis and how they relate to her work. I seriously never missed a class cuz it was just so freaking interesting!
I haven't finished her last novel yet. I tried to start listening it on audio book but couldn't get into it so I think I'll probably end up reading it the good ol' fashioned way!
It's funny, I've recently started doing a lot of reading too and its wonderful just throwing myself back into books and words and remembering why I'm going through this grueling process...*sigh*
good luck!
Oh, so you've read A Mercy. Cool, maybe you could tell me what a minah mae is?
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