The May Swenson Poetry Award

...is my new deadline. I've already posted how strange it feels to have a large percentage of my no-assignment, no-deadline writing take the form of poetry, and now I'm doing something even stranger: trying to write even more of the genre I've never previously had feelings for, and get it peer-reviewed and edited and as perfect as possible, and submitted to (my favorite place) the USU Press for the May Swenson Poetry Award BY SEPTEMBER 30. Am I crazy?

So this means lots of work. The submissions must be unpublished, so only first drafts have the potential of making it onto the blog, and then probably not many. Mostly I will probably keep you updated about the process and what I'm learning, maybe a few troublesome lines or deep questions I'm pondering. If you want to help me out and peer review some of the poems (50 to 100 pages, one poem per page--AAH!), let me know and I will find a way to get some to you! I need all the help I can get!

How many poems a week do you think it's reasonable to expect myself to produce? Remember I have to have time to edit and get them peer-reviewed, too. Ten weeks between now and then, subtract a two-week cushion, equals eight weeks to write. Aim for 75 poems (middle of 50 and 100), divided by 8 weeks...basically I'd have to write (at least) one poem every day. That's a lot more writing than I've ever done.

Tell me what you think of this idea: Shanan Ballam was my Poetry Writing teacher this spring, and since she writes a lot, she's been published, she has her MFA, and she was my teacher of poetry, I'm thinking about emailing her and seeing if we can establish some sort of mentor relationship. Meeting with her once or twice a week would be very helpful for my writing because not only would I be discussing my poetry with someone who knows what she's talking about, but I would have more and closer deadlines and the writing would feel more like an assignment, the two things that I lack over the summer. The only thing is that it's still summer break, so the beginning of this relationship might be mostly email-based, which is okay. Even if I don't earn the May Swenson Poetry Award, Shanan would know of other publishing venues, like journals (or databases of them), and be able to help me either write for a journal's guidelines or find some that are likely to accept my style. Of course, the real goal here (besides an improvement in writing, a bigger portfolio, and a better chance of getting published) is to get another letter of recommendation for grad school. That way I'd have one for my creative work, one for my academic work (Dr. McCuskey, hopefully), and one for my publishing experience (John from the USU Press).

And they tell you who the judge is on the guidelines website (http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/), so now I'm nervous. Grace Schulman sounds incredible. Should I read some of her poetry collections? Some poetry in general probably, just to sort of immerse myself in the situation and the genre, but should I read hers specifically? How much?

This is a lot to do and think about, on top of grad school research and materials, GRE studying, working at Walmart as much as possible to afford tuition, my internship at the Press, reading (hopefully) Atlas Shrugged for a scholarship essay (conveniently due in the middle of September...), and any other kind of writing.

If anybody sees me wasting time, such as watching TV, will you please smile and remind me that I have writing to do so you can see a published book of my poetry? Thanks.