Day-to-day

Today I will head to Davis Square though the weather is less than compelling. While there, I'll spend most of the day proofreading at some cafe or other. This has nothing to do with poetry (besides being my version of the job that most poets need to pay for their frivolous lifestyles: rent, food, electricity, and so on).

What does pertain to poetry, or to my version of being a poet, is the reason I'm leaving the house in the first place. I have to go to the UPS, make copies of the past few months of freelancing paystubs and my estimated tax documents from June 15, and fax and mail said copies to Nelnet, the company that manages my student loans. I say this is my version of being a poet, because I chose to get an MFA and not all poets make that choice.

When I decided to go for my MFA, my reasons really boiled down to one: I wanted to be able to make writing my first priority, more important than work and my early-to-mid-twenties identity-cementing social life. Of course while getting my MFA I worked and made friends (who I ignored so I could work more), but class, poems, stories, papers, or even a reading commitment trumped waitressing. Unfortunately this luxury has left me in debt.

My experiences at Emerson College, where I got my MFA, were 99 percent positive. I worked with terrific professors, became a better writer and reader, and made writerly friends that I can show poems to and talk about literature with. If it were 2004 and I was sending out applications, I would still apply to Emerson College. However, I would also apply to more than two programs and emphasise funding more than I did. Because now I have a degree in poetry (which is spelled closer to poverty than I like) and a mountain of scary bills.

So today I will send paperwork to Nelnet to prove that I am self-employed and not making millions, and hopefully the income-sensitive repayment plan I applied for earlier this month will go through. And while I will end up taking longer to pay my loans and it will take longer to get rid of the interest that has already compiled, I just can't pay the equivalent of another monthly rent.

I heard Emerson plans to provide more funding to MFA students. I don't know if that is true or just a rumor. A friend of mine was always told that when MFA programs offer funding, it means they're struggling, but I disagree. Many programs that offer full funding to all MFA students are among the most esteemed in the country. I think funding attracts better writers because the choice between attending for free or paying tens-of-thousands of dollars is not a terribly difficult one to make. I hope the rumor is true and Emerson only improves an already good program. In the meantime, I'm going to go beg for scraps in Davis Square.

Disclaimer: I am not bad-mouthing Emerson College. I learned a lot in their program and am a better writer and scholar for it.