Rejection: Cave Canem

I regret to write that you were not selected for admission to Cave Canem’s 2009 retreat. As you know, this year we received an unprecedented number of applications. You may be aware that most fellows attend three retreats; therefore, the number of first-year fellows we can invite is, unfortunately, very small.

I’m sorry to convey disappointing news this year, but hope that your having reached the finalist stage of the invitation process will encourage you to reapply in 2010. Historically, due to limited space, many Cave Canem fellows are accepted only after applying several times.

There are worse things. Carrying on.

Bone

I can't figure out if the use of the word "bone" in poetry is becoming cliche or if "bone" just jumps off the page every time I see it. It gives me pause (I love that phrase) every time I see the word. And it's never "bones" (plural), almost always bone. Not "bones locked with bones" but "bone locked with bone" or something like that. It's also not usually preceded by an article, never "touch a bone," but "touch bone". It's almost musical that way I think, how it just drops like a low note. The word is so clean and full of connotations too. I wish I could remember the most recent sighting of bone in a poem so I could provide an example. The fact that I see bone used that way so much makes part of me feel like I need to get bone in a poem lol. But then it makes me want to avoid it because what if bone is a well-known poetry cliche or something. I don't know. I guess if bone becomes the perfect word for one of my pieces, then bone it will be.

Actually, I may just have my own fascination with bones though. Well, I DO have a fascination with bones. I took a fiction workshop about 2 years ago and I wrote a short story that had a character that used to sell her jewelry in the marketplace. The tourists thought it was so exotic and the woman delighted in telling them, "I made them from bones." No, I'm no fiction writer lol. Of course she wasn't the main character and the class liked her more than the main character. Ah, fiction. So after writing that story I read Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones. WHOA! Loved that book. Loved her writing. Again, I'm given pause. lol I love when prose is poetry. So that gave me the idea to give my bone lady her own story. I think bones stand out to me due to my concern for my own bone character.

I don't know that having my own reasons for noticing the word bone takes away from the idea that poets might use bone a lot. Really, it just explains why I notice it so much. Eh, this post doesn't have a point, just something that came out when I was journaling yesterday.

Rejection: Waccamaw

Big day on the notification front, I guess:

Thank you for your submission to Waccamaw. We have read your work
carefully, but have decided against publication. We want you to know, however,
that we were very interested in your work and hope that you will consider
Waccamaw for a future submission. Please see our homepage for announcements of
upcoming reading periods and submission guidelines. Thank you very much for your
interest in Waccamaw.

Alright, Waccamaw, so I guess you didn't want the privilege of causing me to scream and jump for joy today. There may have even been little tears of joy on your behalf. I'll give you another chance, Waccamaw. One day...

Cave Canem Finalist!

Dear Retreat Applicant, Thank you for applying to the 2009 Cave Canem
retreat. I am writing to inform you that have been selected as one of 67
finalists. Due to an unprecedented number of applications this year—over
230—we’ve extended the evaluation period in order to give each submission the
careful consideration it deserves. We will notify you of the final outcome
by April 30, 2009, at which time 18 participants will be invited. We appreciate
your patience!

Getting closer on this one. Last year I was just rejected. This year I'm one of 67 finalists out of 230 applicants! Must everything I want to do have an "unprecendented" amount of applicants this year? Seriously poets, cut all that submitting and applying out. Focus strictly on craft or something. Forget the po' biz lol.

Palm Tree

OMG...I feel like writing! I have been thinking about this all day though and I have to get it out before I can do anything else.

Origins

Before I decided to go back to school and complete my bachelor's degree (well before I could pay off Emory and get my transcripts to transfer) I lived with my ex-boyfriend in a run down apartment complex in Miami. I was forced to get over my fear of roaches by living there because otherwise I would have spent those years cowering in the corner and crying constantly. But that's not the point.

So I'd moved to Miami to be with my boyfriend and he was the only person I knew there. So when we broke up and he moved out I was totally alone in the city. I was a telecommuter so I worked from home and didn't even have co-workers I could call friends for at least part of the day. Still, I didn't spend much time crying and cowering in the corner, I sat on the back porch instead and stared at a palm tree.

I would get so frustrated because I couldn't think of a poetic way to describe this tree. I would stare at it in silence and beat myself up inside because I thought REAL poets wrote about trees lol. This was only 3-4 years ago! So I'm staring at this tree everyday, thinking I'd have to write a poem about this particular tree if I was ever going to be a poet while the 600 (exaggeration) kids that lived in the apartment above mine were hungry, dirty, and obviously neglected. Their mother was never home and when she was she was either drunk/high and yelling, getting in fist fights with her various boyfriends, and screaming obscenities at her kids. I heard it all from my chair on the patio in front of that damn tree.

They weren't allowed to go outside when their mother wasn't home (so they were hardly ever outside) so they had their fun by throwing trash down off of the balcony and fighting with any neighbors (including me) who dared to reprimand them. In my first workshop after returning to school, I wrote a bad poem about those kids. I scrapped the palm tree poems when my professor destroyed all my misconceptions about poetry. Crazy how disillusioned I was and still might be.

One of the poems in my MFA writing sample featured the roaches though. They "break dance in the blink and the buzz of dying fluorescent lights"...those bastards.

So lately I've been scared, suffering a litte from imposter syndrome, worried that maybe I'd given all I have to give in my writing sample and that I have nothing else to say.

Fear is my palm tree now.

(and scene!)
--
Yeah, so, I have a fresh notebook and a sack of new pens so I'm going to see what comes out. Maybe I'll write a good ole palm tree poem just to get the juices flowing again lol. "Fresh Notebook and a Sack of New Pens" sounds like a rap song to me. Well, the hook to a rap song. For nerds. The hook to a rap song for nerds.

But oh! I can't get Jericho Brown's poems from Please out of my head. When I visited IU one of the students let me borrow the book so I could know what was going on in class the next day. I read it in like an hour and didn't breathe until the end of it I think. So I need to buy my own copy because my memory is not doing those poems justice.

I Vow

I vow that I will no longer worry/obsess/daydream/e-stalk plans for after the MFA until after I have completed the 1st year of my MFA program. For this entire 1st year, I will focus on my writing. I already know what I'm doing after the 1st year...a 2nd year, so now is the perfect time not to worry.

I truly believe in Order. I believe this Order dictates that if I focus on my writing as a craft, if I work hard, I will be in the perfect position for whatever my next step will be. I will know the next step when I see it.

So I'm done planning my life 2-3 years in advance, at least for one year. This is the gift that an MFA program has given me and I will take it.

Starting now.

And then there was UVA...

So now that last post about my visit to IU looks foolish. Everything I said was true, I really was looking forward to starting at IU in the fall, the program really is great, I still love those students I met, and Bloomington is pretty cool too...then Rita D.ove called and informed me I was accepted to UVA for poetry. At some point during this call I must have stopped breathing because she felt it necessary to instruct me to breathe. I was not expecting this call. After getting rejected by all the other majors (Michigan, Iowa, Cornell etc.) I just figured UVA wasn't an option for me so I thought I was basically done with notifications. I actually said, "OH NO!" to Rita D.ove because I really was content/ecstatic with my IU decision.

So now, I'm actually headed to UVA in the fall. I just keep telling myself about that poet on Indiana's waitlist who is going to be as happy as I was to get that call.