January 30th, 2012 / 12:16 pm
 Vicarious MFA

Three ways to get a free poetry MFA

1. THE DICKINSON

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructions:
* Never leave the house.

The downsides:
* Psychic fracture (this could happen at Cornell too)
* Your boo marries your brother (this could happen at Cornell too)

The upsides:
* Hot letters
* Yellow ribbon

2. THE WHITMAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructions:
* Read those classics
* Work as journalist (or litblogger)
* Have cool and talented friends
* Self-publish

The downsides:
* Vested interest in defending self-publishing on litblogs
* People all up in your business (this could happen at Iowa too)
* Dealing with Thoreau’s bullshit

The upsides:
* There’s no cure like travel
* Sex (this could happen at Iowa too)

3. MY METHOD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructions:
* Work at a company, factory, or farm that provides tuition reimbursement
* Attend a city university or public college that only charges ~1,000 per class (at my city university I’ve studied with Marilyn Hacker twice, Elaine Equi thrice, Suzanne Gardinier, David Groff, among others)
* Only take the number of classes per semester that your tuition reimbursement covers (in my case, one)
* Graduate in ~10 years.

The downsides:
* You never form a poetry clique
* You still have to live in “the real world”
* You’ll probably never be a professor

The upsides:
* You never form a poetry clique
* You still have to live in “the real world”
* You’ll probably never be a professor

12 Comments

  1. January 30th, 2012 / 1:33 pm Three ways to get a free poetry MFA | HTMLGIANT | Poetry—

      […] 12:16 pm and is filed under Vicarious MFA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 […]

  2. January 30th, 2012 / 2:20 pm Anonymous—

      haha, this is great! 

  3. January 30th, 2012 / 2:39 pm Ryan Sanford Smith—

      Seriously <3 those upsides. Two MFA years can easily feel like ~10, so I'm down with this.

  4. January 30th, 2012 / 4:48 pm ohnovikings—

      Cosigned by a CCNY MFA poetry student. 

  5. January 30th, 2012 / 5:14 pm Laura Carter—

      I love your plan! It took me 6 years because my TA was kind of heavy teaching. And academic writing can be a bubble, yes. So good choice.

  6. January 30th, 2012 / 6:40 pm Melissa Broder—

      This is a really swank comment room.

      Here’s the imagistic equiv of this comment room
      http://bit.ly/AtN4VN

  7. January 30th, 2012 / 7:46 pm deadgod—

      Meat Loaf wrote a book called Light My Fire?  Cool.

      (That soap monkey wants its Micky Dolenz back.)

  8. January 30th, 2012 / 8:20 pm Craig Ronald Marchinkoski—

      i worked construction to pay for mine. the lumberjack look was still considered avant-garde at the time at the little liberal new england universities. but i had to quit my program when the look went ubiquitous. waiting for it to cycle around again. but it might be too late. i may never finish. i may have to be ok with that.

      from the list, the whitman seems the most appealing. but i’m still holding the rimbaud/cheever to be the supreme choice.enjoy

  9. January 30th, 2012 / 9:09 pm deadgod—

      Join ‘us’ on the . . . wha hell, you might already be on The Tristam Shandy plan, “Parturition For Now–For As Long As It’s Now”.

  10. January 30th, 2012 / 9:23 pm BppOperator—

      Read: because my TA was kind of heavy teaching

      As: because my TA was kind of heavy breathing.

      = perverse assumptions.

  11. February 6th, 2012 / 11:56 pm Anonymous—

      pee my panst

  12. February 9th, 2012 / 6:09 pm Thursday Treat: Links I’m Lovin’ 2/9/2012 « Limited Edition Love—

      […] Get a free MFA like these writers […]