Well Bottom Blues

I recognized over a decade ago that writing wasn’t all inspiration. Yes, I revised and revised when I first started writing seriously, but I didn’t get up every morning and think: what am I going to write today.

After my long silence ended last year I tried to focus on Doing The Work. I don’t write every day. My workday life simply doesn’t give me time. It’s Captain, I’m Givin’ You All She’s Got from start to finish, and I’m often exhausted by the end of the day. I do feel productive, writing frequently if not dailly, and my partner who reads my work in progress thinks I’m much better than I was 10+ years ago. I’ve tried to expand and try out forms such as Sonnet Crowns and Ghazals.

When I retire at the end of May, I will be free to Do The Work regularly. Anything I do for money to supplement Social Security will hopefully not be as taxing of mind, body or spirit as my professional life. Beyond that I decided to apply to the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop MFA program. I’ve been suspicious of such programs from what I read online and in the trades. Eventually I realized to progress with poetry, I needed a helpfully critical circle,and serious mentors, and decided I would only find them in a writing program.

I was accepted. I got the email about a week ago, but last night one of the two professors who run the program called to congratulate me and ask if I had any questions. I have a thousand, but this professor is a force of nature, and having her personally deliver this message overwhelmed me. I got a few questions answered but the rest will have to wait until the program manager contacts me about counseling and registration.

When I got the email, I checked the UNO Graduate School and found out two of the three people who wrote my letters of recommendation ( before I realized the program would send them an email to ask for the same) did not respond to that email prompt. The prof told me she and her colleague overlooked that. They both know me and the poets who recommended me, and I basically got in on the strength of my manuscript. That was an even greater validation tham acceptance into the program. I believed in my talent, but by my nature imposter syndrome is always lurking somewhere. This put an end to that. And why I was overwhelmed in the moment.

It is also another match to light the fire and Do The Work, recognition that I have the talent I always believed I had, and that I had the potential to grow even further.