I've had a feeling for awhile that something would happen for me this year in poetry. I've applied to most of the big writing workshops—Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Kenyon. I've been waitlisted 3 times with Kenyon.
But someone cancelled and I was offered a spot for a cohort in the summer with Cate Marvin.
These things are not cheap to attend and neither are they easy to get into. I've only come back to writing poetry two years ago after a 20 year hiatus (otherwise known as a tech career). The day-to-day of writing or getting better at writing or god forbid, publishing—seems slow. Painfully slow. But then a small victory every once in awhile.
I'm looking forward to stretching a little bit academically. I've always responded well to the academic setting. Not always when I'm actively in class, sometimes afterward. When my brain is challenged, it always feels uncomfortable and my anxiety around whether I deserve to be inside a particular space goes haywire. But I usually just white-knuckle my way through it. And once I've accepted all the ways I'm coming up short, I tend to excel very quickly.
Reading Cate's most recent collection, it seems pretty obvious to me that she puts in a lot of work. Her poems are on the longer side, not only in length, but in the length of lines. My humble opinion is that these kinds of poems are harder to do. Longer poems just have to do more to justify their length. For me, they've always required a lot more revision. It takes a lot to keep the reader engaged the longer a poem goes on.
I am sure my week at Kenyon will be a challenging one, but I am very much looking forward to it. Whatever phase for my work is coming next, I want it already. I want to grow a bit. Dig in a little deeper. Find my roots.
