Grand Rapids, Lansing Poetry — October, 2006
I need to have more conversations about poetry. Or, rather, I have been enjoying the ones I have had recently so much that I find myself wishing for more. I have a friend currently in a MFA program and we periodically talk about their pros and cons of such programs. A couple of days ago the topic started out with me kvetching about my terrible self-promoting skills and how it seems nowadays I rarely attempt to get anything published. I wrote:
I might have said this before (sorry in that case) but I wish I was a better self-promoter … mainly because I know it's more of a knee-jerk reaction on my part than anything else. When I was a younger Zachary I kept running into people who were middling to poor artists but constantly pushing their work and thus got fame (though a lot of it was momentary). I'd think, "that's terrible, I'll never do that." Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. So my first reaction to the idea a poem needs to find a home other than in my notebook is, "just write, when you're dead you can get published." Usually my line of thinking in those moments is of Gerald Manley Hopkins or Mz. Emily D. who wrote for themselves and never saw fame and sometimes even urged their work be destroyed at their deaths. I don't know if I would go that far, I try to make sure someone is collecting my work as I go along; but on other moments I think, "it wouldn't hurt you to mail things out once in a while." And then I'll get a poem in some college literary magazine somewhere or on-line and feel happy …
Later in the conversation we talked about what made a good MFA program? It is marvelous to live in an age where poetry is not only seen as an art worthy of devoting your life but that there are means of actually attempting to so. The issue to me isn't whether there should or should not be MFA programs turning out poets. There are and that is the end of the conversation. No, what is highly more interesting to me is what low expectations students have of their programs:
… I think if my grad professors had made a bigger deal out of getting published it would have helped me. I was asked a while back what to look for in a MFA program. Was it the professors? Was it the program? And I wrote back (email) and said, "you will be spending $30 - 50,000 dollars to get a MFA degree. For $30,000 you better have an award-winning book at the end … if a program can't promise you that, save your money." … it's amazing to me that I spent $42,000 dollars and still do not have a book of my own poetry to my name. For the same amount of money I could have printed my poems off at iUniverse and sent a copy to every library in America … maybe even to every poet in the directory.
Huh, that is an idea .. isn't it? Well, obviously there are many poets in the world who do get their work published on a regular basis and do not have to wait until they are dead to win fame. Some of them are even coming to Mid-Michigan. I was looking through Grand Rapids' Media Mouse and found some of the following:
Grand Rapids, MI
Fall Arts Celebration-Poetry Night with Sharon Olds! and Sonia Sanchez! October 11, 2006 7:00 @ L.V. Eberhard Center. Quote, Sharon Olds, the award-winning author of eight volumes of poetry - most recently Strike Sparks, is a professor and permanent faculty member in New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program. Sonia Sanchez is the author of more than a dozen book of poetry, including "Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems" and "Does Your House Have Lions?," which was nominated for both the NAACP image and national Book Critics Circle Awards.
Lansing, MI
The NuPoets can be found at Gregory's Ice House. Quote, Lansing's longest running urban poetry scene. Everyone is welcome every third Tuesday. $5 cover. Open Microphone @ 7:30.
November Teasers
Li-Young Lee @ Aquinas College, Nov. 7 AND Western Michigan University, Nov. 8
David and Sabrineh Fideler, translators of Love’s Alchemy, will be having a book signing and presentations on Persian Sufi poetry @ Schuler's Books, Grand Rapids, Nov. 9, 7:00.