Make a Place for Yourself
You can sit around waiting for a Pulitzer, or you can build a joyful community right now.
In 2010, I went to Vermont Studio Center and had a meeting with the writer-in-residence that month, Forrest Gander. Gander looked at my poems and gave me comments, but he mostly instructed me about my writing life. By then, I’d mostly lost touch with poets I went to grad school with, and no one else was reading my work. Forrest said if I kept writing in isolation, I wouldn’t be able to maintain a creative practice. He instructed me to do three things:
Start sending poems out to literary magazines.
Find people in my area and form a writing group.
Write letters of appreciation to writers whose work I had found and liked in literary magazines.
After the residency, I signed up for Mike Young’s Barrelhouse poetry class. Towards the end of the class, I asked Mike if he knew anyone in Boston who might be looking for a writing group, and he connected me Rob MacDonald, the editor of Sixth Finch. Rob and I started meeting with another writer, who soon dropped out. Later, Kevin McLellan joined us. The three of us met monthly for at least a year.
I loved meeting with those guys. We all wrote very different poetry, but we respected each other’s unique vision. We were at a reunion dinner when Kevin found out his first book was going to be published.
When I was young, I envisioned my future writing life in very specific ways: I’d be a professor with a bright, big office, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and lots of time and respect. Or I’d be a novelist, writing in my house next to a giant window looking out over a bright green field.
I’m not a professor, and I don’t have a house. The ideals I imagined were predicated on different economic conditions or massive, early success. But I have made a place for myself. I’ve shared my inner world with others, and had others share theirs with me. I’ve forged friendships that have given texture and meaning to my life, and have learned more about myself and the world, all while engaging with the art that I love. What an absolute fucking gift to be able to spend time on that pursuit.
If Forrest Gander hadn’t given me that list of things to do, I might not have ever reached out and found community. Rob MacDonald was the editor of Sixth Finch when I approached him, and I was a mostly-unpublished poet. I would normally have been too intimidated to ask him to be in a writing group with me, but doing so was the first step in knowing what I need as a writer, and committing to pursuing it.
Over time, focusing more on community has helped me live a happy life, even when I don’t get a fellowship, or win a particular prize, or get into a particular dream journal. It’s helped me to find joy in others’ success instead of languishing in solitude, where it is easy to sink into jealousy, bitterness, or hopelessness. Make a place for yourself.
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