Cost of MFA/being a writer

I work with a lot of writers. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. We are all teachers. Some of us teach writing, while others teach elements of English -- like vocabulary, critical reading....grammar. At any point in the day someone is talking about their writing, their MFAing, their pursuing MFAing......how they have to work several jobs to pay off their MFA....etc.

I want to share a story:

I am on the cusp of entering into an MFA program. I have to be truthful to you. This is not my first venture into the MFA world. In 2007 I entered into a program and between moving six states away from my family (having never lived so far away), and not being prepared at all for the high cost of living, for living in an area that was not conducive to offering any work (purely residential with some cornerstores and grocery stores)....for not receiving any aid but believing that the MFA is what I needed to do with my life then....I became really poor. I had a teaching gig that paid 3600/course. I only taught one course. I moved up in August. I saved up enough money to get me through to September, when I thought/assumed my money for my teaching gig would come through. For whatever reason, the money was not made available until the end of October. Meaning I went two full months in possibly the second-most (because I was not in New York then) expensive cities in the US without any income.

I have a poem in my book How God Ends Us called "Closer to knowing". Not all of my poems in the book are 100% true to life. But that poem is. And it comes from this experience. It is about how I could not afford to take my clothes to the laundromat, and so I decided to fill my bathtub up with warm water and laundry detergent and get to hand washing. I turned in the poem not for workshop - i did not want to argue the validity of the poem - but it was an assignment from my teacher....who then returned the poem without a pen stroke on it, but instead a letter saying they did not believe i was able to write this story, that i do not know what suffering is, that it is not a believable story, that someone in 2007 would handwash their laundry. and how dare i compare it to the work my ancestors did. but i think the essence of it was missed: i understood it not to be the same work. i understood it to be an interesting position i was put in, and it reminded me of my grandmother who did do the work, because that was how she made her money, but in the absence of money for me, i was forced to consider the work she did....and still could only understand by the reality that i was washing my own intimates, and not a strangers, as she would have.

How did i come to that situation? To get from my house to my school, I had to take a 1.50 bus to the 1.75 path train (this was before they went to unlimited tickets) one way. I spent $6.00 in my daily commute. My roommate was also in school and equally poor. She applied for EBT. Luckily, places like Trader Joe's accepted that as a form of payment...so we weren't starving or mal-nourished. We could get the frozen vegetables and packs of pasta and sauce. Sometimes frozen fish or chicken!

Then Winter came. New Jersey, unlike New York City, does not pay for heat and hot water. Our Electric and Gas bill easily went close to 200$. We'd put it on the lowest possible temperature without fear of freezing in our sleep. My room was the smallest and in the back of the apartment. It didn't get what little heat we did pump into the apartment. I got used to sleeping with a hoodie and sweat pants and my aunt's hand-sewn quilt. I should also tell you I was planning on buying a bed when I moved up here (I sold my bed in NC...it was easier to move with less furniture.)...so I was on an air mattress. Six inches off of the hardwood floor. Heat rises. Cold was all around me. Near the end of Winter, we were approved for reduced electric/gas bill...and only had to pay 25$....

I got through the extremely hard month of September ony by the grace of other writers. Maybe they knew what I went through, or just loved me and believed enough in my dream -- my relentless dream then -- to gift enough money to cover my rent for the month.

When my money from teaching finaly did start coming through, the way it was distributed was over 10 payments. After taxes and shit, I was getting less than 500 a month. My rent alone was more than that.

I took up babysitting (despite my deep deep issues with black women taking care of white children) for a couple of Friday nights. I followed middle schoolers around on Saturdays for a few extra dollars. Obviously, I survived and made it out, but not without serious emotional scars.

I cried many nights because I hated that I was in the position I was in. I was within a stone's throw of probably the most exciting city in the world and I couldn't go there, both because I couldn't afford to get there (I could barely afford to get to my classes)...but also i could not afford to do anything in there. i couldn't afford to eat (literally)....so why pleasure myself by going into new york city.

Something had to change. I discussed the situation with my director...who, up until this moment, had been relatively helpful. Everyone was helpful in a way that showed they really didn't understand the severity of my situation....offering slight comments like, "stay strong" and "you'll get through this" and such. I explained that I could no longer go on living like this. I didn't want to throw my merit on the table, but I did. Didn't I deserve some compensation for my worth? I was publishing in major magazines and anthologies. I was part of two nationally-recognized writing collectives. I'd read in several states. I argued. Couldn't I at least be eligible for more money...soon?

The director was unmoved. It was explained that I should have come there with a savings. (I won't even address this idea that I am a first generation college student...that no one told my parents about saving up for their child's future. Quite simply when I left and told my parents how much my rent would be up there, they said, "well, your rent for a room is more than a mortgage. you've priced out of our range of financial help.") They said, that had i come with a savings, of course, my experience would have been different. I was 22 years old and fresh out of college. I had barely even received my damn diploma. I was told that there was absolutely no reason for me to believe that once I got there, I'd be eligible for more money. Basically I was told I was going to get no help.

All of this because I dared to want to write a poem for a living.

The next day I informed the school that I would continue the rest of the semester, but would not, under any circumstance, be able to enroll in the next semester.

Why am I offering this story?

December came and it was the first time in 17/my 22 years that I was not in an educational institution. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. Not ony had my life been defined by education and the structure of the school, but I was to believe that the MFA was the key to my success as a writer. I decided that I was going to take my fate into my own hands. I found some work that was sustainable. I continued to write and formulate a book. In February, I entered a book contest. In April, I found out I won, that my book would be published. What a dream, I thought. What a dream.

So....now I am about to enter into another MFA program, and sadly the financial constraints of my past are catching up with me. I am emotionally scarred by that experience. I don't ever want to count my pennies - or lack of - like that again....to look into my bank account and see a negative. but....the ghost is still there. Just because I dare to want to teach, to write, to want to be an academic. Just because I want to better myself.

I was recently informed that because of xyz/as a result of/whatever that my financial aid has been compromised. I will not get the money I was promised. Indeed, it will be difficult to get anything in the future. I know that I want this writing life. I know it for sure. But I also know what I will and will not do. I will not live that life again. To sacrifice and struggle for your love is something I accepted as necessary to discover if it really means what you think it means to you. Through it all, I still wrote, still read poems. However, I think it happened because I was blind -- I did no tknow what I was getting into. I will not willingly throw my life away again.

So, at what cost? At what cost is the MFA/desire to be a writer? I'm not saying that I won't write. But I know, too, that sadly, it's hard to do anything in this world as a writer without the MFA. I can have a book after book after book. But I cannot teach at the college level. Shit, I can't even move up in my current job because I do not have a higher degree. But it's so fucked up -- that I have to put myself at financial risk at the sheer possibility (not guarantee) that I'd receive more money later. And if the avg cost of getting an MFA is say, 40k for two years, ain't NO writing job straight outta college gonna make up that difference.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Or why I decided to say all of this.

_Cartographer_ edit #1

While my mom watches the MSNBC tribute to Michael Jackson in the background, I'm going to update a bit bout my progress on Cartographer.



I had two epigraphs. I cut one. I believe this one standing alone will mean more. I then proceeded to read each poem out loud in the coffeeshop, listening for wording and phrasing. Trying to capture line-breaks in the right places as well as punctuation.



Here's the breakdown of the manuscript so far. There are four sections in the 4 cardinal directions. One section is a long poem (hence the big difference between page count and number count):



Page count: 51 pages.

# of poems: 31.



I didn't take any poems out this round (that happenened in the previously mentioned post about manuscripting). I have one poem that I re-made drastically, I believe in an attempt to salvage it...to keep from cutting it.

Here's a look at an evolution. I'm still undecided if it's going to keep its place in the manuscript, however, I'm enjoying taking the stretch...recycling, if you will

draft (a)

A quarter's worth
"Let me say this to you before my quarter runs out" - man in nyc

It is dusk when I pace Broadway -
Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise.

I curse myself for having no desire
to learn, yet yours is the first distinguishable

voice, inflected English a torch
against midnight. I see you, duffle bag

slouched over your shoulder, back arched
into the cubby-hold of the telephone booth.

Such urgency in your ocmmand. I pause
to let you speak - I want to know what

you can say here and now. What do you have
to say from a payphone where passersby

can eavesdrop, stop and listen? You slam
the phone down, let curses slip from your mouth.

I try to imagine myself in your place, try
to think how much time, how many words

can a quarter buy you after all?
------------------------------------------------
draft (b)

Analog

Your cell phone is lost and you dare search your purse for a quarter. Spanish a backdrop of syncopated noise, his inflected English your only torch against the night. Despite his huddle, you hear threats from the body of the blackened phone booth that holds the man like a hug. He screams into the receiver for his quarter's worth of time. You wonder how many words the silver coin can purchase. Evolution: You divvy up your allotted minutes among your dearly beloved; text messages taught you economy of language: fifteen taps to get the point. And the mouth never utters a word.

Manuscripting

I'm in Columbia, South Carolina. I've reached a place where I no longer refer to it as "home"...rather, my parent's house. Whenever I do come to South Carolina, I find being uprooted (interesting, returning to the South is now an "uprooting") from my dailyness of New York City life (or lack) gives me a certain perspective, and allows me to do a certain work. I came down with some goals in mind: editing.

I've got two "complete" drafts of things I wrote in 2008: my novel, a second book. I've spent a lot of time on others' blogs where they discuss their methods of revision. A lot to soak in; a lot to learn.

So. A couple of weeks ago, out of frustration and maybe a little bit of insecurity, I moved around my manuscript, Cartographer. I moved poems from the front to the back, from the back to the front. Took some out. Then, I let it sit. Now, I want to believe I'm ready to go back to it with a different eye.

Reading this book, is also helping me in a lot of ways.

Maybe, too, I'll chart my progress here.

Saturday afternoon musings

It's raining another day in New York City. I am a bit upset. I need sun, people!

So I've been thinking a lot about poetry lately. I suppose it's because I'm not really writing poetry, so I'm thinking about it at least, believing that I'm still being productive. What am I thinking? I'm thinking about several conversations I've had with other writers...most who are where I am, with one book out and another in-tow...and trying to figure out this world of book publishing in a world (the US, really.....why can't we be in the forefront here?) that could care less, really. But anyways, on more than one occasion have I heard someone say they were trying not to write the same book twice. One writer even went so far as to say he was holding his manuscript from publication because he doesn't feel he's been changed enough by it, or that it is different enough. I've been fighting with this. I have one full manuscript, and one that I believe is almost done, and they were all written in and around each other. In truth, some poems that appear in How God Ends Us could very well be poems that could work in this other manuscript. So, what does that say? That my writing hasn't changed enough? That I am writing the same book?

So then I'm thinking about the positives and negatives about this idea....I think a look at music could give us bigger ideas as to why this approach (changing our poetry game each book) could hurt or help us. Erykah Badu could be a good example. She came out with two albums that were similar in feel -- Baduizm and Mama's Gun. Though, without a doubt, in Mama's Gun, she had hints at a change, at something coming -- take the opening cut "Penitentiary Philosophy"....hard core jamming on the drums -- several levels up from "Rimshot", right?

But she still had some of that familiar. Some of that slow groove that everyone liked. Quite possibly my favorite song of hers, Green Eyes contains a lot of everything -- more bass & kick, slow and mellow....great vocals. Something for everyone.

She came out with World Wide Underground and folks were grumbling and mad and about ready to kick her to the curb. Folks bought it out of faithfulness, but I know many folks who don't know the album as they could talk about her live album or any of the other two. It was definitely a change, something different. She definitely didn't "record the same album" again. But at what cost? Folks just coming to her at this album would be taking a risk. Do they love it? Do they want to go back through her discography and see what else she does? If they love it and go back and want to hear more of it, they would be disappointed to find that because she changed her game so, she is not the same artist they fell in love with. Folks coming to this album from the start with E. Badu and with support for her growth would maybe understand that it is a door opening, that maybe, just maybe, whatever comes after this would be a nice balance. She was just going through musical puberty....

So then you get New Amerikah. And I think without songs like "Telephone" -- it would still be unbalanced...very much like a "better" World Wide Underground with heavy background stuff and not as much of Badu's vocals. She found her balance. A balance I think could only have happened because she remembered this past musician she was and gave herself room for this new musician she wants to be. I think if folks come to E. Badu with this as their first album and go back through her discography, they would not be alienated.

Back to poetry and writing and books, now. I am thinking about poets like Lucille Clifton. I am thinking about older poets, poets that we love, poets that we use to build canons and create syllabi for writing courses and literature courses and write whole theses about the arc of their work charting from beginning to end. I think the love of Ms. Clifton's work comes from this unchanging simplicity in her language and poetics...the constant that stays from book to book. Would we still love ms. Clifton as Ms. Clifton if she changed her game up every book? Would we still have the same feelings for her as we went from book to book, looking for those short, imaginative narratives, if she, say, were to switch it up and become a language poet? Would she still be Ms. Lucille Clifton? In name, yes. But maybe that's all.

Not to say something is wrong with becoming a language poet. I'm not going down that road. I've been reading some interesting poets as of late, trying to stretch (read: not change) my own strict-narrative bend. Matthea Harvey's Modern Life has been an interesting read, and only because I am coming to it with this open-mindedness about really trying to figure out what she's doing has it spoken to me in a most real and quiet way.

So there is this tug between wanting to do something different. I feel like I've told most of the stories I have to tell in my life, and find myself writing some of the same things in different ways. That is something I do not want to get locked into...There are some poets who tell the same story from collection to collection. That I am trying to avoid. But why re-invent myself each time I come to the gathering table for a collection or manuscript? What will I prove?

Any thoughts?

The Rest of My Yesterdays..

I'm listening to Alana Davis and trying to get motivated to start my week with a clean apartment.

I bugged my friend Mitchell Douglas to do a poetry challenge, thinking that I would be up for it -- that I would want to write a poem a day for a week and found that not to be the case. I wrote two and a half poems. The challenge ends Monday. I have been reading furiously. Does that count? Thinking about poetry instead of writing it?

My friend said something profound today that sort of eased my "I'm not doing anything productive" anxiety. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: i'm so not in the right writing space.
5:37 PM me: yeh, i hear you
5:38 PM Friend: lol
you hear me?
me: yup. loud n clear. i've not in the right anything space right now
6:07 PM Friend: maybe this is a season in which you are supposed to enjoy life & what God has already done
6:08 PM "How God Ends Us" really is a lovely, palpable, quietly powerful piece of work.
Bask in it!
6:09 PM Don't sweat the next thing. God will bring "Cartographer" and your Palestine project to pass. & whatever you're to do after them, well, it'll come, too.
Who knows how they'll coalesce & evolve at NYU.
Feel me?

--------

So that calmed me down a bit. And I should not feel like I'm not doing anything. I mean, since March 29, I've participated in 14 readings. This Wednesday will be the last appearance of the Spring and will top me off at 15 readings. I've been busy. It's been exhausting. But still, a part of me, the busy-bee part of me, the worrying-because-I-feel-like-I'm-missing-something part of me still feels unease at the pending lull in activity.

Here's a preview to the Fall, however: (this is in addition to going to school and working!)

**August 28, 2009 -- South Carolina -- South Carolina Poetry Initiative will host my SC Book Launch
**Sept 11, 2009 -- New York City -- Bryant Park Reading room with Cave Canem's Nehessaiu DeGainnes and Charles Lynch
**Sept 19, 2009 -- South Carolina -- SCPI Poet's Summit with other poets: Sharon Olds and Rosanna Warren
**October 15-17 -- Lowell, Ma -- Mass. Poetry Festival

I'm hoping to get a few more readings for the Fall and Spring.

Book Opening

May 31, 2009, I had a reading/celebration/opening for my book *How God Ends Us*. It was fun and nice and elegant. It was at this place called the cell in Chelsea. I had a friend from middle school and high school visiting and it was great to have new and old loves gathered under one roof.



I started the night with the poem by lucille clifton: "won't you celebrate with me". It is - as with a lot of other people i know - a favorite poem. Also, because I believe in the spirit of celebration, I wanted to open up my reading with these words:


won't you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

I had a chance to be a bit vulnerable at the reading. I talked more than I normally would have...but I knew without a doubt that those people in that room were there to support me.

What was really cool was several people came in off the street. Some women immediately bought the book.

Other people who celebrated with me on the mic: Roger Bonair-Agard, Patrick Rosal, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and John Murillo.

Here's a link to some photos:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357310&id=2702460&l=ba30dc00a0

Also, my friend Saeed Jones did a little write up about the event, too: check it!
http://saeedjones.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/on-delana-damerons-book-release-party/#comments

Broadside!

Tonight was a reading with Matthea Harvey. The reading was organized by Thomas Sayers Ellis at the Center for Book Arts. The series is called the Broadside Reading Series. The Center brings in poets and they choose artists to create original broadsides of a selected poem. My poem, "Knowing the limits of the earth" was put into another art form, a beautiful broadside.

The picture does not do it justice. Eventually the broadside will be on sale on the website. It's 10 bucks, I believe, and worth it. You can also look at other poets featured in the series.

Exciting, indead.

Next up: Book Party/Launch on May 31!!!!!!!!

Then three more readings and my Spring/Summer schedule is over. Then, summer?