You Between the Lines

Chapter Six

I N HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE, I usually had a specific assignment for poetry workshop. Write a poem in the vein of some famous poet. Write a poem in iambic pentameter. Write a sonnet.

In the MFA program, you can do whatever the fuck you want, and it’s a looseness that doesn’t seem to agree with me. Sure, it’s one of the main selling points of the program, as opposed to just writing in your free time. But I’m a person who likes structure and deadlines. It’s why I like group exercise instead of improvising at the gym. I need someone to tell me what to do. Otherwise I barely know where to start.

Now, though, with the fellowship on the line, I need to use every workshop strategically, testing out the kind of work I think Erica will respond to. In writing this specific poem, I even tried to channel Erica. How would she approach her first MFA poetry workshop?

We receive the first packet of poems on Monday afternoon, meaning we have until Thursday to read through and annotate them with comments. I slip into the English department office to go to my mailbox and grab the stapled papers, containing ten poems—one from each of the five first-years and five second-years. Kacey’s is on top, a two-pager peppered with couplets. I skim it as I walk down the hallway, trying to assess how embarrassed I should be by my own writing level and whether I belong in this class. Her poem is titled “This Is My Body Lying to You.”

It’s very good. It’s better than mine. Fuck.

I continue flipping through the pages. Hazel’s done some long free-form poem with lots of irregular stanzas. August has written a massive block of text that hardly looks like a poem at all. Jerry sent in what appears to be a sonnet: “Sunday River at 2:01 p.m.”

My poem sits in the middle of the packet, both literally and quality-wise. It’s not significantly better or worse than anyone else’s. It’s a deep relief, and I wonder if any of my other classmates feel the same way.

Will’s poem is the last in the packet. It trickles down three-quarters of a page, written in couplets where the second line of each stanza has been indented, causing the entire thing to look like a reverse staircase. He’s titled it “An Apology to the Oberlin College Department of Geology.”

The poem is both gritty and lush. It sounds like it’s about a time he snuck into a college office with a girl after dark while waiting for his dad. The whole thing flows with geological words like agate and lava , but each stanza has a disjointed quality, like he has no idea where it wants to go. I’m not sure if that’s the point or not.

When I get home, I read it several more times, then write my comments, keeping them clinical. I don’t want him to think I spent more time on his than anyone else’s.

I wonder how much time he will spend on mine.

By the time Thursday rolls around, I’m buzzing on unused energy. Gen sends a well-timed text right before workshop begins: Don’t let these try-hards knock you around bitch you’re Leigh Simon the best writer I know

It’s sweet. But she’s biased. Nevertheless, after nonfiction, I go into this workshop feeling much more confident. Maybe my poem isn’t the best in the class, but it’s by no means embarrassing. This is the kind of stuff I know how to write.

Paul begins with Kacey’s poem. In the Perrin MFA program, the rules are as follows: When a poem is up, someone other than the poet reads it out loud. Next, the poet reads it out loud in their own voice so the class can hear it with the intended inflection. Then the first reader goes back and walks the group through a brief synopsis of what is working well and not-so-well in the piece before opening it up to discussion for about five to eight minutes. Finally, Paul chimes in with his take. And repeat.

Harriet, a second-year from Alaska with curly brown hair and a perpetual frown, reads Kacey’s first. “This Is My Body Lying to You” is a bona fide hit. The first-years, clearly a bit afraid to critique, ooh and ahh, but the second-years have good constructive criticism:

Consider the point of view, maybe it should be in third person.

Ending feels like it’s missing a beat.

Maybe some of the imagistic language could be heightened.

It’s all very reasonable and respectful. An acknowledgment that there’s always room for improvement, but still, Kacey’s first attempt was excellent. I make a note to study the poem in detail later for tips.

Jerry’s poem, “Sunday River at 2:01 p.m.,” is more mixed in its reception. Hazel’s “Poem with Stale Cake, Golden Hour and Grandpa” is met with enthusiasm, and August’s “Soliloquy for Michigan Highway 75” is a mess and hardly anyone knows where to begin. Kacey is the only one who says something remotely positive, and even she is reaching when she comments on its “energy.”

Then we move on to mine. Jeananne, a second-year with platinum-blond baby bangs, decides to present it.

“‘Taylor Swift Sets the Record Straight,’” she begins, stating the title.

I’m drowning deep blue easy

as Everest wonderland bodies

constrict and contract he writes about death. I write about teen dramas; he writes about his late father. Every poem I get from him, it’s clearer and clearer: We are not the same.

But even so, there’s something familiar to how he writes. His poetry feels lived-in. Like the individual pieces are part of a bigger universe and he was kind enough to cut us a slice.

Reading his work makes me even more nervous about us both competing for the fellowship. I so badly want to prove that I can write poetry, but he’s a natural talent. My only hope is that Erica sees more of herself in me than in him.

By the end of September, we’ve spent a month and a half as a cohort, and even though we haven’t been together long, I feel like I’ve known everyone for longer. That’s maybe why Christine already feels comfortable inviting us to her parents’ mountain vacation home for the weekend.

“Drive down Friday morning, stay two nights, leave Sunday afternoon,” she says after workshop. After Thursday workshop, all the first-years have congregated at Pete’s, a bar a block from Gilman Hall, where townies mingle with grad students and compete to be “Patron of the Week,” written on a chalkboard every two months. “I’ve been wanting to get away from campus to an environment more conducive to writing, and it’d be so fun for all of you to come with me! And we can just chill, too.”

“Hell yeah,” Houston proclaims. “I’ll bring the beer.”

“Do you have enough beds for all of us?” I ask. I’m not really a sleep-on-the-floor kind of person. My idea of roughing it was sharing a room with a stranger freshman year of college. I definitely have no tolerance for a camping situation.

“Oh yeah,” Christine says. “We’ve got multiple bedrooms and then also bunk beds and several couches. No second-years, though. Let’s just do our year.”

I catch Will’s eye over sips of beer. His eye contact is always so unselfconscious. If he catches me looking at him, I avert my eyes out of discomfort. But not Will. He just keeps staring.

“So will you go?” he asks when the group has changed topics. He sits in front of me and leans in over the table slightly.

“Of course. You?”

He nods. “Good for a change of scenery. To write.”

Classic Will—turning what should be an opportunity to bond as a cohort into his own personal writing retreat.

“Oh, so this is purely a business trip for you?” I arch an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to enjoy the company?”

“Eh. Not everyone. Maybe a few.”

It’s embarrassing how little things he says get me so worked up. It makes me want to hit myself for reading into everything. Bridget would probably tell me to stop. But it feels embedded in my nature. I can never just hear his words. I have to take them apart with my hands.

“Should be fun,” I say.

“Let’s see.”

I insert myself into Morris’s discussion of craft coffee, which is going on next to me. But even as I’m pulled in, I feel Will’s eyes linger, and I try not to think about what it would take to get him to lean over the table again, his hushed, low words snagging in my brain.