On Visiting Colleges

Since I don't have a new book out, I won't have the whirlwind travel over the coming school year. And that's fine by me. Just as this summer has been about my third poetry collection, the fall will be about planting seeds for the next nonfiction book. And in the spring of 2013 I'll be the Writer-in-Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina. It's a small town outside Asheville, but the program has a big reach--just check out their Visiting Writer Series line-up.

That said, I've been booking things here and there, and I've finalized a trio of visits to colleges over a week in October: dropping in on a creative nonfiction workshop at Ole Miss, a reading and workshop at Belhaven University outside Jackson, and a craft talk and poetry reading at MSU in Starkville. I'm thrilled to return to Mississippi, but in particular I look forward to the variety of these events, and the students I'll meet.  

These visits matter. I take them seriously. We talk about the benefits they have for the students--the advice about publishing, the chance to network--but the impression is significant for the author as well. I was just reading the Washington Post and I came across a book review by a woman whose name, to this day, makes me shudder. Why? Because she was a nightmare when she came to visit my MFA program. She critiqued the manuscript of a fiction student, which was identified as a chapter of a novel-in-progress, and in her opening salvo announced that she didn't find the protagonist likeable, thought the work setting was boring, and that the section (and by association the book) used the wrong choice of POV. This was a semester before theses were due.

There's nothing wrong with drastic suggestions, except subsequent remarks--which confused the names of characters and obscured plot points--made it clear that she hadn't read the manuscript that closely. The writer, a kind and thoughtful student who had based his character's job on months of research, left on the verge of tears. He'd come in so excited to be the one workshopped by the Very Important Writer. (We knew she was Very Important because The New Yorker had reviewed her book which, when I tried to read it after her visit, proved witty but emotionally arid.)

When you show up disinterested in student work other than as a chance to show off how smart you are or how merciless editors can be, they notice. When you check your watch, counting down the minutes until you're off duty, and you skip the round of beers back at the favorite grad student bar, they notice. When you're rude to a beloved program mentor because he or she has "settled" into the teaching life while you've gone on to publish another three books, they notice. And they have a right to notice! They've spent their money on your books, they've spent hours studying your craft, they got up at 6 AM to pick you up from the airport and ferry you back to campus. 

So show up, damn it. I don't mean that you can't demand coffee as a premise to cogency, and I don't mean that you have to magically recall everyone's name when signing books. You can be human. But please, be present. 

We had some wonderful visiting writers as well. One was, at the time, just a poet on tour to support his second collection--a philosophical, slightly difficult book with an indie publisher. Since then he has become a superstar; his life was made a movie. It would be easy to resent someone who has come so far, so fast, but I will always remember how attentive he was students in workshop, how engaged and kind at the reception afterwards. For years after he would say hello at AWP, remembering our meeting at American University even if he couldn't quite remember my name.  

He showed up. 

We Need Another National(ish) Poetry Series

Art by Doug Beube

Last month I had the pleasure of attending a reading at the home of Reb Livingston, the editor of No Tell Books, which featured poet and editor Bruce Covey. As I chatted with Bruce about the upcoming slate of publication for Coconut Books, I asked: 

Why doesn't a consortium of publishers start up another "national" poetry series for indie and/or experimental presses?

The principle is simple: poets pay a reading fee to have their books considered not by one press, but by five quality presses simultaneously. The existing National Poetry Series (which currently incorporates Coffee House Press, Fence Books, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Books, University of Georgia Press) has a great track record of selecting poets from a variety of aesthetics and matching them to appropriate houses. But they get a ton of incredible manuscripts, of which they can only publish a few. 

There is room for another national poetry series, one that recognizes an annual cohort of exciting new voices. Coconut, Black Ocean Books, Octopus Books, Switchback Books: I am looking at you. Doesn't need to be the same publishers every year, though there should be a quality control mechanism for rotation in and out of presses (perhaps approval by an advisory board) that includes a pledge of minimum reasonable levels of support in terms of editorial infrastructure, design, number of copies printed, distribution, secondary award nominations, and publicity. The reading fees could fund an auxiliary force that works to market each year's winners, and by association the publishers. While I realize that there will always be variations in aesthetic--different opinions of what the "best" manuscripts are--that is why one employs multiple judges. 

One thing the NPS does not do is create a network between each year's winners/judges, though the invaluable perks include name cache, an AWP reading, etc. But imagine if these indie presses went all in, and pooled their resources in terms of connections to opportunities with readings series and classroom visits around the country. Anyone who attends AWP offsite events recognizes that these likeminded affiliations already exist on an informal level. Imagine if this gave heft to freelancers trying to pitch small press books for review? Imagine if Small Press Distribution did an "Indie Poetry Series" summer special, a package rate for all five titles? 

I'm not naive about the bureaucracy or ethical complications associated with contests, but I'd love to hear some discussion. Nothing great ever happens unless you start with the "imagine" phase.  

A Visit to Chestertown

On Monday I trekked out past Annapolis to visit the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. (Founded in 1706, it was the major port town until Baltimore came along. These days it is a little on the sleepy side. A local bakery was pointed out as the hotspot.) I was honored read with Kevin Vaughn, this summer's Cave Canem Fellow), visiting all the way from Paris. I was also thrilled to be home-hosted by Jehanne Dubrow--I finally got to meet her dog Argos!--a great poet, friend, and the House's newly appointed director. 

Thought you might enjoy a quick glimpse of the Rose O'Neill digs, which features a fully-functioning letterpress studio...

...where students and faculty work together to make a many broadsides, including this edition of Nick Flynn's poem "Bag of Mice"...

...and where local artists have donated their talent to spruce up the walls, including this playful mural that depicts Six Degrees of Bacon--both Kevin and Francis...

...and where students can access a spiffy kitchen for snacks and cooking, provided the recipes have a literary bent. (Madeleines a la Proust, anyone?)

Seriously, what a dream haven. So many books! So many places to sit, read, write! 

Our poetry salon was lovely--we began with music from the Pam Ortiz band, Kevin read from a long series-in-progress, and I shared a glimpse of the new manuscript. We had a big, friendly crowd. The editor of the Black Warrior Review was in the house, so I also read one of my sestinas, "The Platypus Speaks," which appeared in their journal. 

Afterwards Kevin and I ducked out to the Hotel Imperial where he ordered us an ace concoction that substitutes Dewars' as the base for a Manhattan, sweetens with SoCo instead of vermouth, & garnishes with lemon and lime. 

Now, off to the mountains for the Nightsun Writers Conference in Frostburg....

Cleaving

v. cleft (klft) or cleaved or clove (klv), cleft or cleaved or clo·ven (klvn), cleav·ing, cleaves
v.tr.
To split with or as if with a sharp instrument. 
v.intr.
To split or separate, especially along a natural line of division.

This past weekend I drove down to North Carolina, just south of Danville, for an important interview. On the way back I stopped off at my beloved Virginia Center for Creative Arts to take in the derecho damage, which they'd been reporting on over at the VCCA blog (including multiple days without power). The staff has been great, particularly Barbara Bernstein and David Garratt, who had to monitor the emergency generators for the kitchen--above and beyond the call of duty for artists in residence--and fellows rallied, trading in the usual serenity of the grounds for the bond of literally weathering the storm. 

But there is no way around the devastating loss of trees. David took me around to the swimming pool, where derecho probably came roaring straight up from the hillside below. Mammoth poplars and ancient pines, wrecked. And these were not hollow trunks or deadfall waiting to happen--these were healthy trees in the prime of their multi-century lives. It was hard to see. In some cases the downed trees took others with them that otherwise would have survived the storm, the weight of one body breaking the other. 


As David said, you can't help but develop an attachment to these sentinels, seeing them day in and day out. Shape begets personality: the proud pine the, voluptuous poplar. The practical naturalist in me knows that storms have been devastating forests for eons. But humans see thing on the scale of our own lifespans, and so this feels like a death in the family. You think the shade is gone. You want to gather it all up in your arms and sit for a long minute. 

In Lynchburg, the closest major town to VCCA, I discovered a wonderful fresh farm market. I splurged on a big watermelon, tomatoes, bi-color corn, and a mix of heirloom beans. Hunkering down on the balcony to cut the watermelon, I missed Mississippi something fierce. I have fond memories of puttering around the Grisham House's mint-green kitchen, barefoot, listening to Sam Cooke or Valerie June, making do with hand-me-down knives and pots to fix a meal. Hacking hunks of watermelon off for Beth Ann Fennelly & Tom Franklin's kids while the grown-ups played bocce and sipped beer. Mixing beans and rice for the Hill Country Picnic. Roasting corn soaked in the husk (five for $1) to feed Ole Miss MFA students. 

I fell asleep early last night, in the midst of a thunderstorm, and woke to 5 AM light. This was the view from my bed. I moved to this apartment in the midst of my own violent change, the cleaving of a life in two. Trusted sentinels were falling. I wasn't sure if I'd stay; I half expected to be in Mississippi by the end of the year. But, two years later, here I am, more in love with DC than ever. There is an alternate definition of cleave: "to cling or adhere," from the Old English cleofian and/or the Old High German klebÄ“n, "to stick." When a hull splits sometimes it is a gesture of dying, and sometimes the revelation of something sweet inside, something to cling to. Either way, what is lost affirms what remains.