You Know You're Doing Something Right if You Make Someone Cry

(Residency Day 8)

Which I did today, in the best possible way. I turned in a poem for workshop that actually caused someone to be so moved as to cry while she read it out loud for the group (FYI: workshops usually involve either the poet reading the poem out loud before critique begins, someone else reading it out loud, or both--can give you more depth and understanding by hearing it out loud, or bring to light inconsistencies between written and aural presentation that need to be addressed). Which in turn got me starting to cry, although I held back pretty well. You see, as I may have mentioned before, one of the biggest criticisms I've gotten since joining this program is that my poems are unnecessarily emotionally detached....talking about highly-charged subjects, but effectively removing myself from the poem, which leaves it coming off cold. Sometimes understatement is an effective tool to get at something larger than words can express, but sometimes too much is too much.

Anyway, I wrote a poem while I was here about "the summer of '99" which is yet another euphemism and I really don't feel like explaining here why that specifically was a horrific, terrible summer for me--those who know will just know, and those who don't can feel free to ask me in private--because I decided that I needed to dig down deeper and write about something that I simply cannot brush off or speak of lightly. I went for gut-wrenching and I got it, seriously. It was a huge breakthrough for me. All the poetry spilling out of me this week has been so charged, so messy and beautiful and emotive. Like a dam breaking.

Paula told me that she thinks the second residency and correspondance semester is probably the biggest for most students, because finally you can stop focusing on the "how do I do this program" and focus more on yourself, on your work. You know the ropes now. You can just go with it. I am beginning to agree with her--no, wait, I already agree, and have been since, like, Monday.

I really am starting to miss home, though. All this personal growth and no one to hug me through it. And do you ever notice how powerful it is for two people who are in an intimate relationship to use each other's names? So often you just fall into "baby," "honey," "sweetie," etc. and then when the REAL name is used....it's huge. Just a thought I had the other day.