Weird World of MFA postings part II

I have discovered, through postings on the MFA creative writing blog, that every year most universities have notified all applicants by this point. Acceptances, waitlisters, and rejections should, by now, have been informed.
But this year, a very important writer's conference (that I had no idea about--shows how much of a writer I actually am) was held in Chicago last week, and several universities had spring break this week, so many of the writing programs have not made final decisions. Some Universities send out rejections first, some last.
The blog is an attempt to get out information faster.
So, if you were accepted to McNeese, for example, you post on the blog when and how (email, phone, snail mail) you were contacted. Then everyone else who applied to that program reads your post and becomes excited and petrified as they wait for their email/call/etc. In some ways it is not such a good thing. Its pretty depressing to hear that last Thursday someone else got accepted to a program you hoped to enter. You, of course, have heard nothing. Now, you must wait for what will probably be a rejection. If you didn't follow the blog, you'd have no idea anything had been decided until you received your decision. That way you could at least hope until the end, and not feel horrible waiting for what you are pretty certain will be bad news.

On the other hand, it can be comforting as well.
When I received my rejection (terrible word) from LSU, only moments after others did too. I felt connected to them. I felt like it wasn't so bad to be rejected as long as these other writers were as well.

Recently the post has been hit by several rejection notices. It feels like hearing about loved ones dying in a war. All these hopefuls writing things like:

Today I received an email from NYU, rejection. Later I got another email from Hopkins, also rejection. That makes four rejections so far...

Every now and then a really uncaring soul will write something like:

Just got accepted to Columbia!
Only on the waitlist for UBC :(
but I've also been accepted to London.
So now I have to decide. Columbia or London... oh decisions are so difficult.

Sure, be happy you have been accepted, but don't try to tell a bunch of folks who've been rejected 10 times in the last two weeks that DECISIONS are difficult.

Anyway. I am going to post again later today or tomorrow with the three stories I sent to the Universities. Two of them you may recognize from earlier posts, one will be new. It'll be a long post because all together its something like 30 pages. Maybe I'll just send you the new story.

weird world of creative MFA hopefuls

Here is the letter of intent for another program I am waiting to hear from.
This program is at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
It happens to exist very near my closest friend, Lisa.
Other than that, it's a great program so I once again doubt I'll hear good news.
But I'll let you know.

I've been chatting with other MFA hopefuls and am shocked. Some of these students have been applying for 3 or 4 years to the same programs. They apply to sometimes 15 different universities. With an average application fee of 50 dollars and the amount of money it takes to send GRE scores (24 dollars a pop) these guys are spending loads of money! I feel like I am a 12 year old in a class with seniors. They report to a website whenever they receive notice (rejection, wait-list, acceptance) or to ask questions, to gloat, to feel warmth from others in similar situations, to discuss programs, etc. ALL VERY interesting.

Anyway, here is my MFA statement:


Statement: Background and Goals
I completed a BFA program in acting/directing in 1991. For many years, I worked as an actor and helped run a small theatre company. While working in theatre, I wrote and produced three plays. More recently, I worked in Japan, France, and the Czech Republic teaching English and English composition at high schools. I discovered a love of teaching, and began to see how writing helped students to focus and improve. While living abroad, especially in the Czech Republic, I discovered and explored the culture and lifestyle The Czech Republic has a rich abundance of fairy tales and legends and a proclivity toward songs and storytelling. While living there I gathered as many stories as I could find. Whether the rich abundance of Czech fairy tales and legends,
18 months ago, I left the Czech Republic to return to the United States and care for my father who had advanced Alzheimer Disease. It began a transitional period for me. I relied on my writing to retain a connection to a creative source, and felt that my skill improved. Writing became more than a pastime, a hobby (albeit a dedicated one). After the death of my father, I was left with a legacy of short stories I had written during his care. Many of them reflect my father and his experience. Without the release writing brought to me during his illness, I may not have been able to succeed in caring for him and keep my mind healthy and free from despair. One of my goals is to write work worthy of him, his life, and the life of human beings in general. We deserve to be explored, examined, and immortalized in the written word.
I have worked as an actor, teacher, bookseller, hamburger flipper; but I have always been a writer. Throughout the magic of youth, the tumultuous transition years, and the responsibilities of adulthood, writing supported me. It has enabled me to understand myself better, gain confidence, dream, explore, and create. I believe that through writing, people (especially young people) can develop confidence, change positively, gain support through difficult times, hone argumentative skills, and improve vocabulary. I recognize what writing has done for me. My wish is to introduce others to the anodyne writing can bring. A second goal of mine is to teach creative writing as a tool for empowerment and use it to bolster self-esteem for young people.
In the past year, I have completed 10 online courses in English. Since then, I have read The Bascombe Novels by Richard Ford, Against All Things Ending by Stephen R. Donaldson, Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik, and The Best American Short Stories 2011. William Faulkner’s work and his exploration of stream of conscious have influenced me, recently. Another of my goals is to construct a form of writing that would depict the mind and experience of a patient with Alzheimer Disease.
I chose UCF for several reasons: I discovered positive feedback in several places including the Huffington Post; UCF employs professors like Peter Telep whose literary work spans the genres and employment possibilities of writing; and UCF offers its creative writing students many opportunities to explore writing in “real life” ways. This leads me to my final goal, to gain the experience, expertise, and professionalism that I believe UCF can offer.


Kevin Smith

long silence

I have not written in a long time.
Maybe it is because I had nothing to say. Maybe it is because I am beginning to feel lost and old and worthless.
I have not worked in over a year.
Its not because of Dad or anything. Sadly his memory is fading along with my strong connection to the Czech Republic.
I have been writing though.
Not here on this blog, I don't know why but it felt wrong. Finished. It felt as if it weren't functioning.
I have an extremely long short story I want to share with you, but Ill wait for a bit.
This winter I decided to apply to Graduate school.
I applied to TCNJ for an MAT in English (Teaching masters 2ndary ed.)
But I also--on a whim that became a desire a "whisire"--applied to LSU and UCF for

tension filled
moment of
waiting

creative writing.

I sent three stories. And two letters of intent.
Today I am going to post my LSU letter of intent and the reply I have just received from them.


LETTER:

Eighteen months ago, I returned to my childhood home to care for my father. He had advanced Alzheimer Disease. Accepting the role of my father’s primary caretaker began a difficult transition for me. I relied on my writing to retain a connection to a creative source. Writing became more than a pastime. After the death of my father, I was left with a legacy of short stories. Many of these reflect my father and his life experience. Without the release writing brought to me during his illness, I may not have been able to maintain my own inner health. One of my goals is to research and explore Alzheimer Disease and represent it in fiction. A second literary goal deals with my father specifically. I wish to write work worthy of him, his life, and the life of human beings in general; we deserve to be explored, examined, and immortalized in the written word.
Before returning home, I worked in Italy, Japan, and The Czech Republic. My years abroad teaching not only introduced me to a variety of different cultures, it also enabled me to view my culture—and myself—through new eyes. Teaching also effected me deeply. I discovered a gift for connecting with young people, creating an environment for them to learn. I believe that through writing, people (especially young people) can develop confidence, change positively, gain support through difficult times, hone argumentative skills, and improve vocabulary. I recognize what writing has done for me. My wish is to introduce others to the anodyne writing can bring. A second goal of mine is to teach creative writing as a tool for empowerment and use it to bolster self-esteem for young people.
My childhood also influences my character and voice. I grew up in a small town in Southern New Jersey. Jacobstown represents an ever-shrinking specimen of a particular type of Americana. Next door an old man used to live in a barn. He took showers under a hose and slept on a cot in an empty horse’s stall. Now a family of three lives on that lot in a gigantic 3-story home. Every Christmas, their lawn shines brighter than the aurora. The backwater “pineland” of my youth has been reformed into an ordered, modern rusticity, and both of these influences have effected my life and writing. I see the world in a contrasting flux between loss and progress. I try to retain the benefits and eccentricities of the past while embracing the possibility of the future. A further goal of mine is to capture the metamorphosis that my generation has witnessed.
The creative writing program at LSU can enable me to obtain my goals. Taking a glimpse at the diversity and experience of your staff, I am both awed by their prowess and thirsty for a chance to be taught by them. LSU offers so many opportunities to its students, I would be a fool not to attempt applying. Even the mere possibility of entering your program inspires me to improve. Kevin Smith


REPLY:

Mr. Smith,

I write to inform you that you are not among the small handful of applicants admitted to our graduate program for the upcoming academic year. I should explain that this year we received not only a large number of applicants but a large number of good, well-qualified applicants – more, in fact, than ever before. In evaluating the applications, the admissions committee considered many different factors. After lengthy and careful consideration, final decisions have now been made.

I thank you for your interest in LSU, and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Sharon Aronofsky Weltman
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies

*******************************************************************************************

I'm not surprised, just disheartened. I don't really know where I am headed, but an acceptance into a program like LSU would have delayed the need to know. A new journey focussing on a new aspect of myself would have kept my life magical. Now, I feel like the Wizard of Oz after Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal me. A thin, mediocre looking man who can't even get his cheap, disheveled, vociferating machine to function properly. Yes, he has some good advice but after a few moments thought, most of what he says is not only obvious but has been said so many times before.

I wonder if any of you are still out there reading?
Doesn't matter much.
The effort is what counts.

poem

This poem is similar to a short story I wrote
Its purpose was to mimic a specific modernist poem
I chose William Straffords "Traveling Through the Dark"
Here is my attempt at a poem of the same nature


Hearing Night Outside

Hearing night outside interrupted by a shout
Sleep staggered to window in predawn light.
Hungry, considering sausage, I saw dad
And a cow tied to a tree, knotted rope taut.

Hand fumbling with sill in the dim glimmer
I hauled up the glass as dad hoisted his gun.
Horror filled eyes bulging from its head
The animal strained; the tethered tree swayed.

Fear struck we three together
My father’s finger shaking on trigger,
Cow’s desperate distended gape,
My throat tight and trying to articulate

Witnessing I wanted to stop it; my heart sickened
Frozen my father viewing down his sites
The cow screeching a second after the blast
It fell forward, a fainting formidable foundation.

A moment’s realization—my first encounter—
My blood barely beating as red ran from the beast.

A new story, an old theme

Here is a short story written on the topic of Mr. Sayens and my father:


Tendrils
This is a testament to words, struggle and the ability to learn. The best teachers are not in schools.
On April 2nd 1949 I turned 16. In the middle of English class I stood up silently and gently pushed the hard wooden chair under the desk. Mrs. Bergman arched an eyebrow in that scary way she had, expecting an explanation for my actions. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even grab my books. I just left. A few of the boys started snickering and I heard someone whisper “moron”. I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of scraping by, and the perpetual D. I walked straight to the main office and showed Mrs. Woodward the form signed by my father. She handed me a blue form and pointed to the line for my signature. I signed it, and then I left school, forever.
At home Mom nearly had a conniption, whatever that word means. Don’t even tell me to look it up in a dictionary.
“You did what?” She held a white dishcloth tightly between her two outstretched fists as if she were ready to snap it at me. Her lips formed a perfect parallel line to the taut towel, “Don’t think this is some kind of vacation. Tomorrow you’ll be looking for a job.”
I didn’t tell her I’d already gotten one, and that I started 7 am the next day. People tell me I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid. My parents are not the type to allow for any free rides. They’re part Puritan and part Attila the Hun, if you know what I mean. They have other parts too, but they keep those hidden taking them out for birthdays and Christmases and times like that.
I rode my bike to work early the next morning. A man, who lived a few blocks from us, had been looking for someone to help him in his garden. His name was Mr. Signs. He was something like 80 years old, but he loved that garden. I knew a lot about farming but not much about gardening. Mr. Signs didn’t care, and I didn’t care about health insurance and benefits and all that. It was a job and it paid money. That was good enough for me. Plants are interesting too. They don’t speak, but they do have personalities.
For an old guy, Mr. Signs was crazy.
Sometimes I’d arrive at work and he’d be nowhere. So, I’d start doing anything I could think of—watering or weeding. Then I’d hear this whisper coming from above. “Kennny—Kennny”. Looking up, I’d spot the old man at the top of an oak tree, in his skinnies, smiling and swinging his legs around.
He knew a lot of jokes and stories, a regular Uncle Milty sometimes. If he had broadcasted his own radio program, I think he would have been extremely successful. He had a wife name Lillian and a maid named Hattie. Lillian Signs owned about 300 pairs of shoes, a few mink coats, and got driven into town by a chauffeur. One day she came out on the back porch calling Mr. Signs.
“Mr. Signs! Mr. Signs!” in a high-pitched respectable voice.
Mr. Signs winked at me and called back to her, “Coming Hattie!”
That made Mrs. Signs all flustered and angry, “I’m not Hattie” she said and slammed the door.
Those days with Mr. Signs were a lot more interesting than school had ever been.
His garden, that was a world. I mean, a regular landscape of somewhere else. It reminded me of my own mind, tendrils of pathways all leading around and intersecting with each other, but you never knew which path was which, not in a hundred years. You just followed your nose and relaxed and suddenly you’d come on things, like a shaded pond with wiggling tadpoles or a statue of a naked lady or a deep green lawn with grass like a mattress.
He asked me one day why I dropped out of school. I didn’t have a very good answer. I just told him that it wasn’t for me.
He smiled at that and went on to tell me about all of these famous guys who never finished high school. Did you know Ben Franklin was a dropout?
Another day though, he asked me about the books we read in school.
I kept my head down, and my focus aimed at the ground I was hoeing.
“Never read Jack London?!” Mr. Signs seemed more shocked then I figured he actually could be shocked.
“Why, What in the H. do they have you read at school these days?”
I didn’t answer right away, although the question had a sound to it like it wanted to be answered.
“Fitzgerald.” Mr. Signs speculated.
I just shrugged, and began to put more muscle into my work, breaking up the ground, scarring it deeply with every energized slap of the hoe.
“Twain? Crane? Certainly not Dreiser?”
“Don’t know them.”
“Shakespeare.”
I relaxed a bit and nodded.
“Well, which play?”
My heart began to beat rapidly. I can’t remember titles. Mrs. Bergman had made the class read a play out loud. I’d never been called on to read (the only nice thing Mrs. B ever did for me.). I bent down to pick up a stone. There was no stone and I just felt silly bending down for no reason, although Mr. Sign’s didn’t notice. His attention was directly on my face. I stood and leaned a little on the hoe.
“One about a boy and a girl”
“Romeo and Juliet!” Mr. Signs grinned wide.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“What did you think?”
“It was good” I answered lamely.
“But, what did you think” Mr. Signs pressed.
It had taken about three days of English classes to read through that play. I had thought a lot about it. In class Mrs. Bergman had asked us questions during the reading. I had wanted so badly to raise my hand. I remember one of the boys saying that Juliet was a tease and Romeo was stupid to go through all that trouble for a girl.
“Romeo wasn’t stupid.” I said to Mr. Signs. I was afraid he was going to laugh at me, or something.
Mr. Sign’s smile just lit up like daffodils in early April. “Yes?” he said, and waited a bit.
“Well” I said, twisting that hoe around and watching it churn up soil. “Some people think Romeo is stupid, you know to die for love. But I think that’s the point. Some things are more important than death.” I waited for Mr. Signs to tell me I was wrong. He didn’t. He just started talking up a storm. All about the play, and asking me more questions then anybody has ever asked me in one hour. I forgot all about my stupidity. I had wanted to talk to someone about that play since my classmates read it out loud, but I was afraid to. We didn’t do much gardening that day.
“Hang on for just a moment” Mr. Signs seemed excited now. There was something in his trot as he turned and made for the house. After a moment I could hear him acting like he was Romeo and quoting famous lines from the play.
I finished hoeing and decided to weed a flowerbed near where we were standing. I felt good. Mr. Signs had listened to everything I’d said about Romeo and Juliet. Sometimes he had nodded his head, excitedly. I pulled weeds with vigor, imaging them to be fellow classmates in English class.
By the time Mr. S. returned I’d dug up my entire class and piled them into a green heap.
Mr. Signs carried a book in his hands and a bright smile on his face.
He held the book out to me.
I looked at it. It was enormous. An old faded green cloth book. Bigger than any book I had ever seen.
I felt sick.
“Well go ahead, boy. Take it.”
I was still kneeling from the weeding. My heart beat so fast and hard, the throb of it shook my finger tips as I slowly reached out to retrieve the book.
Mr. S delicately released it over to me like a mother allowing someone she trusted to hold her baby.
It was heavier than I thought and it immediately dropped onto my raised knee. Simultaneously my finger caressed the book’s cover, and traced the ingrained letters of the title, as my head stared to ache.
“It doesn’t have the sonnets, but all the comedies and tragedies are there. Take your time with it, there’s no rush. But try to read something soon so we can discuss it. I suggest Tempest.”
I couldn’t think. There was a tempest all right, but that was in my head.
“I…” I said, dumbly looking at the book’s cover, my finger still dancing over it. It occurred to me that the letters, whichever ones they were, looked like vines of Wisteria or ivy running up the side of an old wall.
“Let me show you” Mr. Signs said, and sat down next to me. I wanted him to take that book away. He didn’t. Using my knee as a table he opened the book and started flipping through pages like a madman. All those wiggly tendrils of letters passing by so fast, I felt like I was going to be ill. He finally came to the page he wanted. He pointed.
There!” He said, triumphantly.
It was full of tiny squiggly lines. I tried to focus my vision, and discern the individual letters, see what he wanted to show me. Shapes like intertwined vines confused my focus. I was pretty sure the first letter was a tee—like a tree. After the tee the letters seemed to be sewn threw the page with an erratic needle. Blossoming creepers, like flowers chocked by parasitic weedy creepers filled my vision. My heart pounded and my head felt dizzy, everything began to slide around. Whenever I tried to concentrate on a section of the page, my eyes became confused and I couldn’t find the letters. Sweat began to form at my forehead and my back became rigid.
Mr. Signs began to notice something wrong. He looked at me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
I wanted to say I was wrong. I wanted to shout it. I hated this. I hated holding this volume of beautiful written things and not be able to engage in it. Like a rosebush trying to grow in a dark and shadowy forest, trying to reach the sun, but just drying up, losing all its buds, leaving only the thorns, which turned brown from lack of light. The others were right. My mother, Mrs. Bergman, my classmates were all right. I was a moron.
“I can’t read.” I said. And I swear, this one tear, one damned tiny tear, escaped from the edge of my eyeball. Just one, and it felt like a lot of pain, and anger, and—I don’t know—sliding down my face.
Mr. Signs got real quiet, sorta respectful. He took the book off my knee and laid it in his lap. The sunlight had gotten all golden and shimmery like right before sunset. I looked out at the light. I knew you weren’t supposed to look directly at the sun, but somehow I didn’t care.
Then quietly, but not like whispering or anything, I heard Mr. Sign’s voice.
“The Tempest,” he said, “By William Shakespeare. Act I, scene I…”
It took a few years to find someone who actually understood my dyslexia. Eventually I learned how to read. It was one of the hardest things to achieve in my life. It never would have happened if Mr. Signs hadn’t wanted to share his Shakespearse and Fitzgeralds, Lord Byrons and Walt Whitmans and all the rest. The best teachers are not in school.

news

Today my sister stopped by early.
Her, mom and I cleaned out my Dad's old room.
I hadn't gone in there since a few days after his death.
It was too much to deal with. Not the emotion (things still happen... I am brought to tears by a certain plant blooming, a reddish hair in my beard, in how my mother reacts when she meets an old friend in Wall-mart).
The idea of going through that room, where so much happened.
Where I felt like a slave
and also a son
Where Dad bled, peed, coughed, breathed, shat, smelled, called out in the night, cried, yelled, hit and kicked me
looked at me accusingly
dared me to get him out of bed
slapped me when I washed him
screamed NO
when I changed his diaper
went through sheet after sheet after sheet
[if this were a poem, I would have written
shat sheet shat sheet shat sheet]
where I prodded him with needles
gave him happy pills
fed him through a tube
where I learned so much
gave away more
had little effect
wasted and withered
THAT ROOM
Damn that room.

We removed everything.
Threw away tons
donated the rest.

Those things
these memories
are not him anymore
should never have been
him

He doesn't come to me. There are no murmurs in my dreams.
No instant rainbows in the sky.
No dogs barking at nothings in the night.
No mysterious sounds originating from nowhere.
No coincidental occurrences

He had been missing for so long
I don't think he could find the way back now.

poem from a painting

In groups we had to choose a painting:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper/morn_sun.jpg.html

And then write a poem about it:

I have been reading so much poetry my mind is full of rhyme and rhythm, so I chose to go in that direction.

I sit up in my bed and view
An open window in my room.
It lets in sunlight and the moon's;
It also lets in gloom.

There used to be a true green field,
Where now that factory lies.
The chimnied tops of industries
Disturb discolored skies

My mind is full of used-to-bes, from windows' reflective scenes;
Bodies age, and so do plains, as well as painted window panes.



I dreamed of Dad last night. In the dream he was like a puppy. He'd gotten outside and had run away. I called and called him, crying because he wouldn't come back. I knew he was lost forever.
Then my sister said, "I bet he'll come back".
She opened the door and called his name.
He came running into the front yard, immediately.
He wore a lunch box strapped to his back
and goggles!? Don't know why.
He looked extremely happy and sort of shook his behind as if he were wagging his tail.