Post MFA Quiz!

Name the novels that belong to these first sentences:

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

Here is an account of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

“Where’s Pa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice, vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong muscled and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

Six months before Polly Cain drowned in the canal, my sister, Nona, ran off with a cowboy.

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of the voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of ________.

Publication: Word for / Word

I've got some poems up here.

Sing a Song of Rhet Comp

Today my students turned in their first batch of essays. I call this: the stack of doom.

They'll hurt you, and desert you

And take your soul if you let them

Oh, but don't you let them

Consider me steeled against essays that begin, “In all of today’s society…” I won’t even let my mandatory class about the pedagogy of the dialectic of the rhetoric get to me. A pox on the discourse community!

Here is another difference between MFA and PhD. I watch the first years scramble around, saying silly things like they “can’t make lunch” because they have to “prepare.” O, first years. If higher education has taught me anything, it’s that lunch is the best part.

Today, after three years of musing on the problem with Comp, my answer today is this: by trying to appeal to everyone and teach everything it appeals to no one and teaches nothing. Fresh Comp should be eliminated and other profs forced to assign some writing instead of grading via Scantron. Writing should be part of coursework — so students have something to write about.

Wait, isn't that how a little school called Cambridge operates?

I took a Monday morning appointment for the Gyn at student health to get out of my Rhet/Comp graduate class this morning. And here I sit next to a vat of anti-bacterial hand sanitizer. I might try some grading. Or not.

I need The Clapper As Seen on TV for my inside.

Soul off. Soul on.

Soul off. Soul on.

Comp is difficult to distance because the subject is near my heart, yet killing it. I have no illusion that in nine weeks I can prepare young minds for the rest of their college coursework. What? NO. And furthermore, it’s wrong of the university to put this guilt trip on me. I’m Catholic and that’s not playing fair. I see the guilt on the faces of my fellow TAs as we are lectured on our grave responsibility. The Facebook updates about how they stayed up all night doing homework. It’s so easy to make the good girls and boys feel bad. Know what? If the U really cared it would pay real teachers to teach, not throw twenty somethings in front of a classroom and hope for the best. They wouldn't prepare us by assigning articles published in 1980 about the History of the Sentence.

Strangely enough, I see that comp instructors are often the best a student gets. We’re not tenured, rifling through the same lecture notes. We love lunch and therefore we can still love. But for how long?

I don’t want you anymore

Cause you took my joy

I don’t want you anymore

You took my joy

You took my joy

I want it back

You took my joy

I want it back

The jumping through academic hoops wears a soul down. Don’t you let them.

All I want in life is to be that awesome visiting writer . The problem is my students could throw me a freaking parade at the end of this quarter and cite that parade in the correct MLA format and I would be no closer to my dream job. It’s all in my pubs. And that’s the weird part, how a creative writing professor in the eyes of the U isn’t any different from any other discipline.

Or perish.

George Saunders Says Exactly the Right Thing. Again.

Another documentary to put on the list: Vernon Lott, "Bad Writing." Trailer link here.

Or, just read this quote by George Saunders,"As far as I'm concerned bad writing is always about a falseness. It's about the writer's real view of the world and her tendency to articulate it being out of sync in some way. So it's basically a dishonesty that comes from an under-confidence in the idea that what you actually are is good enough."

And yes, George Saunders is the visiting writer this spring at the Ohio University Spring Literary Festival.

The Basement: Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

Coinciding with my one-year anniversary as a gainfully employed person, for the second time in as long, the ceiling of my office is spewing dank water from the Forestry department's critter freezers. As I drink my first cup of coffee, getting ready to proof some course descriptions for the winter quarter, I can't help but think about what could have been. And yet, all those other possibilities--legislative work, perpetual academic life, teaching, Florida, the glamorous life of schlepping coffee--seem like pale fantasies. This life, the one that starts every workday in a dusty basement lit not by windows but a bank of flourescent lights, is wholly appropriate. This is the Rome to which all roads inevitably lead.

All that's left to do is reach up and give my Affirmation Ball (HR's take on the Magic 8-Ball, bright yellow and bearing the countenance of a happy face) a shake. Today's affirmation? "Half Full!"

PhD Inbox: A True Story

Dear K, our records indicate you have yet to view your bill from the bursar. If you have viewed your bill please disregard this email.

Dear K, in addition to your regular course hours, please add ghost hours, and 590.

Dear K, don't forget to add 591 in addition to 590.

Dear K, 591 is incorrect you need to add 591 B.

Dear K, Please drop 591, which is now called 591 A because of 591 B.

Dear K, Again, a reminder to drop 591 A and add 591 B.

Dear K, Go back to 591 A.

Dear K, 863 was a terrible mistake and all records of 863 have been eradicated.

And we updated the syllabus. Please note that the readings for 9/21 are now the readings for 9/23 and the readings for 9/23 are for today. Reflect in your journal.

The two meanings of rhetoric:

1. The art of persuasion.
2. Bombast.

Keats, sexy beast

Knowing this, Brawne's interaction with Keats is limited, so she injects herself into his life by feigning an interest in poetry.

When the Food Jars Come to Haunt

After some belabored breaths, I had to close the kitchen cabinet for fear the two--three!--opened, half consumed, year old peanut butter jars would jump from their shelf to meet their due demise. In two weeks, it's moving time. We leave the apartment that stuffy hot and bitter cold and, occasionally, perfect breezes, built. We leave the apartment for a less expensive, more convenient option 10 miles closer to work. We leave the neighborhood gentrifying around us, the fusion Mexican restaurants and funky hair salons (my, what $45 can buy you), and swap one interchangeable chain coffee place on the corner for another on a Rogers Park corner.

We're not moving that far, but we're moving again. Make this my 7th move in as many years. We gain a view of the lake, a used bookstore, a free shuttle to work. I'll save time in the existential wasteland of commuting. At the same time, I'll loose the carpool time with my excellent carpool buddy. Or, I'll miss the absence of human sound on the nearly full 8am train car, watching the newspaper readers and head-drooping nappers as they default into quiet and calm.

We're leaving the back door that was kicked in, despite the deadbolt's mighty hold, on move-in day. Tony, blessed building manager Tony, had no choice but to do this, when faced with the prospect of trying each key on the telephone-pole-thick loop of unlabeled keys that went to locks that were locks no more. This is the apartment that came with a 2 x 4 to fortify the same back door. This is the apartment whose walls crumbled down to brick after a particularly relentless rainstorm one year ago this October. This was the glorious apartment T & I drove straight for, delirious from days on the road from Montana. Where the UHaul would stop, nobody knew. This is the apartment where staying immobile under a blanket in the midday cold of winter meant survival of the extremities at the expense of a productive writing day. The building's heat timer knew nobody would be home, because, why, this was the workday hour! Here, we pounded out cover letters off and on for eight months. Here I tended to write desperately voiced poetry about consumerism and then forced myself to stop deferring to tropes, even if the cold and the din of city brought these ideas by the fistful. The Carl Sandburg city "under the terrible burden of destiny, laughing as a young man laughs," bringing these images.

What we wished to consume was the tiny offering this city could afford us. Thanks for the free pesticide spray under our sinks once a month, landlord. Thanks for the sheet of ice out back, you, building manager, would break up with a sledge hammer every few days rather than fix the leaky roof drain. Thank you neighbor children enamored with our two cats, meeting us at the fence line to pet them through the links.

So I do it all again for one more year, marking time with the lease. This time, we have stairs with a bum step on the second story landing. We have a mantle. How very stately, this bathroom window painted shut. I can only hope we'll have the threat of rats and soggy walls just like last time. We'll have the breeze and light like last time.

Then and Now: MFA v. PhD So Far

It's hard in these first weeks of my PhD to not think back to those first weeks of my MFA. Part of me admits an emptiness. Athens, Ohio, is a good place than people swear by, and I like it, I do, but it's not Montana. I love you Montana. And I will continue to drive with your expired tags on my car until the Ohio DMV carts me away.

And I miss my friends. I miss stumbling around Higgins, the intrepid forays into remote Montana bars, the nervous sweat of that first workshop table as we wondered if this MFA meant we could really be writers. I have talked to other MFAs and Post Traumatic MFA Disorder is a candidate for the DSM IV. It's taken me a year to level out.

This time around the giddy factor is way lower. When I got my call from Judy I was floating for about six months. The call from Ohio was more of a relief. I had somewhere to go before seeking employment from Lucky Dogs.

And stranger, somewhere along the way, I suspect with all the moving, I lost my social phobia and became reasonably well-adjusted at meeting new people. Say whaaa??? Or maybe the last year just completely broke me. I have given up so utterly, so completely that now life can begin.

People always said I seemed happy and confident but it was a painted shell, I swear. Maybe the smile on my face finally froze that way. I'm still absorbing the shock of this transition. The problem now is that most writers and academics are all socially malformed. This occurred to me at the last get together, as we stood eyes shifting, gripping plastic cups of Yellowtail Chardonnay. But at least I know now if someone acts snarky, or self-absorbed, or incapable of looking me in the eye, that this has nothing to do with me and more to do with did somebody forget their Lexipro today?

O, writers.

Socially adjusted or no, don't worry. I'm not about to chant the Kappa Gamma pledge. I'm still in search of the pariah smokers, and the person (yes, you there, hiding in the study) scraping the inside of her arm with a pin. These people shall always be my true loves.

It IS nice coming into a program with some success. If anyone tries to get snooty I can wave the Fall Gettysburg Review in their pinched little sorry face. For my MFA, I felt much more like I had to prove that I belonged. In quiet moments, alone, I feared my acceptance was a total fluke. I shook for weeks in fear my first workshop submission and couldn't look at my typewritten responses for weeks after.

I feel pretty seasoned now. Leathery, even. As I watch first years scurry to recreate the Fresh Comp wheel, I know I will simply churn through the syllabus so I can get home to write. The irony being, now that I'm relaxed in front of my students instead of hyperventilating in a paper bag, that I'm more popular teaching rhetoric than I ever was showing movies.

P is for PhD

This post will be short, since it is about the first week of school, and how I have too much to do. I believe the lovely Trina Burke recently posted on this meta-dilemma of blogging. How long can I justify writing about how I don't have time to write?

I'm in the basement of the Ellis building in the computer lab. As a PhDer, I have an office with a computer that I only share with two other people, but apparently a past MAer downloaded so much porn the anti-virusware exploded.

Tech support has been called and Formula 409 wipes applied.

First week:

So far, I notice in the PhD that teaching comp is easier. Not easy. But "er." I am more prepared for what I must face. Ohio U students (seem to be) more prepared for college life than Montana kids in from the tundra. Although, I could be forgetting the hopes I had before...the first essay. So far I have received three legible emails which inspires encouragement.

I am pleased to report I do not have to teach the personal essay. No papers on hiking trips, frat boy jamborees and Keystone Lite! Yes, the personal essay is hard, and I'm glad the comp director recognizes that having it as the "easy first assignment is a bad idea.

P is for Publication!

Hey my story, "The Law of Meat" is out in the fall '09 The Gettysburg Review. My first fiction pub. Yay! And there's a picture of a tiger!

For any fellow classmates out there this is a revision of the creepy babysitter story from the fall '07 Canty workshop.

The website is down so if you are my mother or my two friends I co-write this blog with and wish to purchase the issue, TGR's number is (717) 337-6770, or email kkoontz@gettysburg.edu.

Poet Bloggers, or Why I Haven't Had Much To Say

There's an interesting discussion on the topic of poet bloggers going on over at Hayden's Ferry Review. Darren Morris wonders whether poet's blogs detract from readers' experiences of their work while Sandra Beasley notes that her creative life is on a "different plane" from her personal life, which is another way, I guess, of agreeing with Morris' assertion that we poets who blog hope readers will be able to "erect a partition" between our blogs and our poems.



Morris and Beasley make great points. However, it is the fear of what Morris articulates in his post, the TMI cloud, that has kept my blogging to a minimum over the past couple of months. Does anyone really need to know the details of my trip to Eastern Europe? Is there anything worthwhile that can be gleaned from my bitchy overanalysis of the 2-day chapbook rejection I just received?



Occasionally I have insightful things to say and occasionally I say them. Ideally, everything I write here would be considered, well-written, and a vibrant addition to the discourse surrounding contemporary poetry. Or a funny-as-hell send-up of the ridiculousness of contemporary poetry. Or something. Or not. Maybe, ideally, my most concerted writing effort would be spent on my poetry.



Beasley writes, "You’re not doing things right unless you’re getting on someone’s nerves. Unless you’re an anesthesiologist." It's a clever statement, but I have to take issue. Anyone who's ever taken in the flame sessions that pass for comments on Harriet is familiar with the effects of this approach to blogging. The definition of "right" is up for debate, of course, but the idea that a good argument = emotional disturbance is tied up in our American obsession with polemics and self-identification via ideas. That is, Love me, love my ideas. Hate my statements, hate my person. Which is dangerously close to Know the poet, know the poem and vice versa.

Anyhoo, I'm still grappling with it all. I will continue to grapple. I will continue to blog as I grapple. I will continue to write poems.