Homeschool MFA
Listening to My Life and Creating a Poetry MFA
Once upon a time, my sweet friend Kara, got me a subscription to Cozy Blue Stitch Club. I love the designs that Liz creates and was so happy to know that new projects would be coming my way.
The last pattern to arrive was called Evening Walk–a field of wild grasses with a line of trees behind and flock of birds overhead. The scene looked so much like the view from our house across the river to the West Hills. I love the line of fir trees at the top of the ridge, and I knew those tiny blue birds were actually geese flying to the river.
A few years ago I came across an interview with the former poet laureate Ted Kooser. He talked about his daily writing routine. He comes to the page every day because “you got to be there when the geese come flyin’ in.”
From these daily pages he distills the year’s writing: “I feel that I’m really fortunate if, at the end of the year, after writing every day, I have a dozen poems I care about. That’s plenty.”
Kooser’s simple phrase–be there when the geese fly over–has become a touchstone for me. A little nudge toward the work I want to be doing. I want to show up every day so that I’m ready when inspiration alights. In season and out of season.
From the bluff above the river where we live, we watch the geese flying over, hear their calls, and see the neat Vs come unraveled. And every time it’s a reminder of this work.
In 2019, I decided to write about my Homeschool MFA experience–what had worked and what I’d learned in the first years of this project. You can click on each title to be taken to the post.
And I’d love to you about your own poetic education.
William Stafford’s Daily Writing: The Date
Keeping Track
William Stafford’s Daily Writing: The Boring Prose
Even More Classes
William Stafford’s Daily Writing: The Aphorism
Remind Yourself of the Work You Want to Do
William Stafford’s Daily Writing: Something Like a Poem
Oh friend!! I’ve just started up my homeschool mfa plans again, after letting it go for a few years. We are done (done!) homeschooling our kids after 23 years of good work, and life is not what I anticipated but still so good. I am picking up my notebooks again and I look forward to going through your resources. You are such a generous wealth of goodness ❤️
I love that about the geese. When our house flooded and we became refugees in the fall of 2021, we ended up in a house near the beach in Plymouth. I loved being able to walk to the beach every day. And on the way there we passed a small pond where the geese and ducks would often settle at sunset. It was so lovely to stand there in the fading evening and listen to them flying low overhead and splashing down into the water. That's a delightful image for the way poems come as unexpected gifts.