If I don’t get accepted into am MFA program this year, then what? One of my recommenders is retired, out of the teaching game, out of the recommending game. And I begin to bore with this dance. I have to confess, renewed interest in pursuing an MFA has not wiped away old misgivings. The stuffiness of the ivory tower and the strange authoritarian disposition of some workshops makes me leary. My portfolio is essentially superhero poetry, fanboy inspired trauma writing. The academy tolerates biographic writing, autobiography, semi-autobiography, “literary” fiction, and “magical” realism. Those quotations connotate dubious skepticism: magical realism means something can appear to evoke fantasy without being fantasy—that or a fairy tale. In such case it must evoke a fairy tale rhythm, while maintaining a Marquez-ian posture. (I’m not knocking him as a writer, just sayin’) And literary fiction? I still don’t know what that means? Anti-genre? Whatever a selection committee likes so they may maintain a highbrow aesthetic? In the end, whatever it is, literary fiction is just another genre, one that is supposed to place a high emphasis on technical skill as supposed to plot driven story-telling…or something like that. As I said, I’m not 100% certain what it is anymore, but I think it’s become more vice than virtue.
Yup, I wrote about superheroes, and I crammed that thing with all kind of allusions that most committee members are not going to get. So much so that I decided to add footnotes! Shit, I look at the lit mags and e-zines, and I don’t have the faintest clue where I’d send this stuff. Does Patton Oswalt read poetry?? Because when I try to conjure up a receptive audience, one that might like what I’ve written, he’s what comes to mind.
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