Weekend Updates

Went to Pittsburgh on Friday with a couple of NEOMFA friends to hear Jan Beatty read from her new book, Red Sugar. People, if you don't know Jan Beatty, you need to read this book (and her first two, Mad River and Boneshaker). She's my new poetry idol. I mean, I loved her work before, but now I'm obsessed.

Probably the coolest thing about the reading was the crowd. I don't know if it is a Pittsburgh thing or a Jan Beatty thing, but the audience was wound up from the second Judith Vollmer introduced her. It was almost like going to church--I think I heard a couple of "Amen!"s from the crowd, especially when Beatty talked about unions, steel workers, and freedom of speech (I guess she was recently censored at a bookstore for being un-family friendly). Since I'm trying to be a working class poet (okay, I guess I was born that way, but you know what I mean (I hope)), I really enjoyed being part of an audience that didn't seem--for the most part--academic. Her poems are sometimes comlicated and non-linear, but when coupled with her explanations prior to reading them, they make perfect sense, and hit home in a lot of ways. At the end--a standing ovation. I don't think I've ever experienced that at a poetry reading before.

That's what I want...to write poems that speak to people both inside and outside of academia, poems that will recieve praise from my colleagues but will also resonate with my family and people like us. I think that somehow, Jan Beatty has achieved that. And I'm going to immerse myself in her work until I figure out how.

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In other news, and I'm sure this comes as no surprise by now, I am really, definitely, for sure moving to Chicago and going to UIC in August. I'm terrified--of moving to the city, of starting a PhD program at all, of leaving home for the first time--but starting to get excited. As I've said before, I'm really looking forward to being a student again. And I'm sure that I will adjust to urban living. But we all know adjustment stresses me out. It'll be an interesting experience no matter what, and some people (Michael Dumanis) seem to think that being outside of one's comfort zone is the best place to write good poetry. We'll see. Now I just have to figure out where to live and how to move. I don't want to beg all my friends to drive to Chicago with their back seats full of books, but it might come down to that. or maybe I can talk my parents into loaning me the money for a Uhaul. I'll pay them back in 2049, after my student loans. Oh, wait, that would make my mother 108 and my dad 111. Hmm...

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Okay, so here's the story on my random comments about my personal life: I'm dating someone. I've been single for two years and am totally out of my element in this regard. But so far, so good. Today, I'm meeting his parents. Oh my!