sacrilige

so suzanne, will you be irreverent the entire time?

a devilish grin cuts across my face.

this is why i do better with a low residency program. i can do whatever i want in the interim. it's the tedium of sitting in classes and bullshitting all day that i've lost the capacity for.

someone today called me a "high thinker" and sometimes i wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just be a sheep in the herd. i can't hide the near intolerance for this particular set of hoops i have to navigate at the moment.

i did get my choice of advisor which is a blessing. she is giving me trust first, and that is what i need at this point. i want to be directed, but i also want to direct. i want to walk with someone not follow.

so we touched upon the process issues we've each identified with my work, namely, that i don't revise anything and i proposed this idea.

how about i revise something and argue why it doesn't work for me.

perfect.

i think if i approach it as an intellectual endeavor, not a practice issue, that i can swallow it. if i make it a requirement for my program that i revise something, anything, that i give a little here, that i'll get a little there.

i'm told,

the process sucks but you will be a better writer after.

i have to trust this. have to.

i do understand that i am not here so much for the process bullshit as i am for the credential. i want to teach someday, i want to move forward in my life, my writing, and this is what i need to do now. for no reason other than it is the place in my life i've come to.

i just didn't expect to feel outcast among my people. but i think this outcast feeling is something i carry deep inside. the marrow in my bones, if you will. it is not something i can divorce myself from simply be cause i want to. i will never really fit in, and i have to accept that fact, because to me, fitting in is selling out. that is the bottom line. there is some outsider in me that i don't ever expect to wipe her shoes on the welcome mat and come in to any inhabited building. this wild woman runs free and cannot be caged. will not be caged. this is the woman i get a glimpse of from time to time. the woman i get in trouble for being. and so be it.

i'm told by the two other poets in my group whom i connect with that i need to voice my concerns about the lack of soul in process. if not so much for myself for the fire that will blaze with the discussion. these are the larger themes i want to explore, the mystics of poetry that i live my life reading and writing about. the rest leaves off, the talk of craft leaves off where i'm just getting started.

i need to utter these words, to dare steering the group way off course because i'm not getting anything from these craft discussions. today when we were analyzing poems, i got bored and counted all the letters of a particular type on the page to be a smart ass.

she used a 66 times, and e 78 times.

i said it almost nonchalantly, and the poet leading the workshop said,

that's interesting, what does it mean?

i have no idea.

(hear: it's all bullshit to me)

which led to a discussion about the use of letter sounds. i looked at her and said,

you're really going to make something of this?

yes,

she smiled,

in some ways your being irrevernt is helpful.

she asked us all if we were appreciating the process or if there was going to be a mutiny?

are you sanctioning mutiny?

i ask. she smiles and says,

well, i've been part of a few mutinies myself.

(remember, she is a poet).

but i met with my advisor who had just left this poet and another (the big cheese poet) and my advisor said,

i think you'll be one of our shining stars.

i just smiled. i genuinely feel bad for those who have to try to teach me something. it's a frustrating process, i'm sure. i'm hard headed as yesterday. there's no changing me. but i'm also moving. to my own beat, perhaps, but moving nonetheless.

i have another mindnumbing class to go to. i'm told the prof is a hottie. and this is how i get my kicks these days. oogling men. and women, apparently.

peace. out.