Graduate School Progress

Based on my previous posts a few things about my graduate school views are becoming clear. I have reached the point to where I recognize further schooling will be necessary. I remain reticent at the prospect of MAT programs, therefore MFA in Creative Programs are my priority. Based on my prose output this Summer (and really ever) my poetry stands as the strongest representation of my potential as a writer, therefore my focus shall be on MFA in Poetry.

My choice of MFA schools change every day or every other day if I'm lucky. Consequently I have decided to develop a criteria for MFA colleges. For one, they should be areas I'd like to settle in; this means the Atlantic South, the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior areas (within the vicinity of Chicago), and New England. Secondly, the college should be in a place that doesn't require a huge amount of car expenses. I am weary of the prospect of having to drive around to get anywhere, or at least doing it excessively. Therefore I am looking at institutions in cities that are developed to have fully functioning and overarching transit systems, or college towns that aren't huge and catered to a specific college crowd. Third, programs should be fully funded, which for a MFA program to be worth it in this economy, it should be. 

I intend to apply to 3 MFA schools. I have about six prospects: U of Miami, U of South Carolina, U of Florida, U of Minnesota, U of Illinois, and UMass-Amherst. Amherst, Columbia, and Urbana-Champaign are college-oriented areas that are pretty accessible and not too hectic, and Minneapolis, Miami, and Boston fulfill the prospect of substantial city qualities. U of Miami and Minnesota are my top choices, but this could change tomorrow; NC State has been on my radar for a while but Raleigh is a bit sprawled out for my interest, as Central Florida in Orlando might be. Wisconsin is also on my radar. 

This is all well and good, but I need a good portfolio and I  am facing a crisis of portfolio choices. I have written many poems, with many of them of pretty decent quality, and many of them fairly rancid. I have tried to delete the rancid poems, which serve as a means of helping me get through writer's block. 

I have tried to retrieve poems from my output over the years, and I feel like I have 17 potential portfolio candidates, to fill about ten portfolio spots. Five of them are good quality and are definitely going to be in my portfolio. Therefore I have five spots for the other 12 poems I have in my arsenal.

The intention of portfolio is to reflect the themes I intend to communicate through my poems as well as communicating the state of myself as an artist. This means going through poems that I have written that I find outdated, usually poems written in a confessional free verse style. I have a poem, for instance, where I describe the sort of hazy moment of the awkwardness of seeing someone I don't want to see, but I feel it doesn't accurately portray my output. On the other hand, I have another poem similar, but I am thinking of including it due to how it holds up themes that I still carry. 

I will probably still continue to write poems, but my priority between now and December 1st is primping up my portfolio and mending/revising various poems here and there.