31: I Felt Isolated in my MFA, so I wrote About What Poetry Slam Has Taught Me.

Read my essay: Two Literary Orbits Eclipse

Hello from the other side of the first semester of my MFA. I’ve come up for air.

Some grad school vignettes. Kala's feet on a blanket I got from an elder at the Choctaw powwow, me in the snow, propagation in winter.

I just turned in my first-ever scholarly essay about poetry slam and spoken word. It is a whopping 3,700 words (that’s a ton for me ok!!), and it deals with what I call “two literary orbits” eclipsing and nurturing a class of poets who have gone from poetry slam spaces to academic spaces and sometimes back to community again.

I utilize the 1947 essay “My Adventures as a Social Poet” by Langston Hughes, the 1833 essay by John Stuart Mill’s “What is Poetry?”, (spoiler: I do not like this essay LMAO) the 2018 New York Times Essay “Political Poetry is Hot Again” by Tracy K Smith, and the book PIG by sam sax to talk through a few ideas I’ve been tossing around – what makes a poet able to withstand critical pressure in both academia AND poetry slam spaces and what can be learned from poets who are successful in both arenas? I use PIG by sam sax to think through how community-based poetics move on to the page, and there are *so* many books that do this. (I’ll include a list of books I recommend below). I also explore the backlash to being what Langston Hughes called a “social poet” in today’s capitalist hellscape (billionaires controlling poetry spaces, for example 🙃).

This is a draft of my essay, and in the coming months I will be working out the kinks and revising – you’ll likely be able to tell that I made my way to my argument after quite some time. One of the revision tasks will be to make my way to my argument sooner so the reader can hang on to it throughout the essay.

Since it is a draft, I’ve put the essay behind a paywall. If you want to read it and can’t afford the $8/month – send me an email, and I’ll get you the link. Here’s the essay and some book recommendations.

Thanks for reading. Here goes.