peterography

For me the workshop dribbled to a close. A couple of poets left this morning. We managed to find time to read and critique two more poems in today’s session, helped by our reduced numbers and a five minute quota on the last set of poems.

On Thursday night we had the opportunity to do a very brief reading for the FAWC community – but my wife had just arrived on the fast ferry from Boston and we were shifting our quarters to Wellfleet so I decided to spend the evening with her instead of taking part. This elicited surprise bordering on shock from some classmates. I don’t know why – no one had ever suggested participation was expected or important. By contrast, in last year’s Paris workshop, when I read at Shakespeare and Company, it was made crystal clear to us that this was an honor we were fully expected to take advantage of. (we were also allowed to read a lot more poems).

The workshop included a 20 minute one-to-one personal consultation with Major Jackson but I turned mine down - I couldn’t think of anything to ask to unlock the secrets of poetry in such a short conversation and although some people like to use these opportunities to ask about MFA programs or how to impress publication editors, I don’t see what those things have to do with writing poetry.

After the last class some of the students and Major went to Pepe’s for lunch but I went back to Wellfleet - sometimes I’m happy to sit around and shoot the shit when there’s shit to be shot but this wasn’t one of those times and I just wanted to see my wife after our days apart.