At the time of writing this, I am 23 years old living in Hadley, Massachusetts. I am a poet in The University of Massachusetts’s MFA for Poets and Writers– in my first, but hopefully not last, graduate program. I currently teach a first year college writing and composition course at the University, although, next fall I will be teaching my first creative writing workshop on New Surrealism in Poetics and first lit seminar next spring. Last summer, I got my first arts administration position with the Juniper Summer Writing Institute as a program assistant where I plan and read applications for writer’s week-long residencies throughout the summer. I am currently working my first position at a press (a dream of mine), as an publicity intern at Wave Books, a poetry press out of Seattle that I’ve always been a big fan of, where I do things like keep up the calendar, website updates (first time learning to code), read manuscripts for forthcoming books, archive reviews, as well as do research projects for the press’s PR and marketing operations. I am starting my first literary magazine this spring with two of my dear friends in the program titled Little Mirror, where we will be publishing poems and reviews by poets. I have my first chapbook Gutter Ball forthcoming from Distance No Object, a small press out of London sometime early this spring. I have a girlfriend, who I met in the MFA program and adore so much. Although, not a first relationship, definitely a first dating someone who is just as passionate about poetry as I am. As it appears, this past academic year has been a year of many firsts.
When I think about “Firsts” my first thought (no pun intended) is that a first often occurs in the wake of death, no matter how large or how small— often a choice that separates us from who we once were to what we are about to become.
As a “first” Substack post, I want to leave you with a first moment of inspiration that I can think of that struck me last spring. It’s a section from George Oppen’s poem Image of The Engine. It was the impetus for writing what I’d consider my first major work, a twelve page long poem titled The End is a Distance I’m Inside, about dealing with the aftermath of my first major breakup. This poem felt like a large stepping stone into defining my poetic project and range. I was lying in bed listening to a bunch of Oppen readings on PennSound and upon hearing Oppen’s slow heavy voice dip into this verse in Image of the Engine, and was instantly moved.
From Image of the Engine, George Oppen, 1962 4. On that water Grey with morning The gull will fold its wings And sit. And with its two eyes There as much as anything Can watch a ship and all its hallways And all companions sink.
The gull, the shipwreck, the water, sight… it lead me to think about how even the observer becomes an active participant in any event. How we can become both witnesses and participants in our own grief, even if we do our best to sidecar it all. How truly responsible we are to our own presence. How complicated and simple it all is. I saw felt this as a call to action to start dealing with my relationship to the grief that I was sitting in with the loss of a very important and formative relationship. We, at times, are the gull in the poem. There, as much as anything.
George Oppen has become one of my favorite poets of all time after studying his work rather intensely last spring. He was the first of the Objectivist Poets (a modernist movement in the 30s and 40s) that I encountered and really fell in love with. Oppen was a part of the communist party and quit writing for 20 years to fully participate in activism and political organizing. Oppen eventually came back to the page in the 60s to write absolute fire bars and win the Pulitzer Prize for his long poem Of Being Numerous (1968) in 1969. He was also a huge Wife Guy, loved his wife Mary so much— here’s an adorable photo of them.
The full Image of the Engine poem
George Oppen reading Image of the Engine
We will see how far this Substack takes me, I am learning this mostly for my research project at Wave so I can report back on how to use Substack first hand (LOL), but also realizing that this could be an exciting way to be constantly engaging with my studies and how it shapes my life around me. The direction for this Substack? Perhaps monthly updates, reflections and recommendations on poetry/art/music/film I find compelling, and any the joy or insights my friends bring me as I navigate growing into my mid-twenties as a poet, teacher, and “professional” (whatever that means).