The Polaroid Transfer

We had an engagement/going away party last night in the apartment, and of course, I feel more disjointed than ever. A little split apart. Too old to be here, too young to be in Virginia’s program. And it’s not like I’m the only 23-year-old. By too young, I mean too inexperienced, like I’ve tricked everyone with some good poetry. I’m ready to learn but not ready for everyone to know that I’m a bit of a fraud, or at least, that I constantly feel like one. I’m not a fraud when it comes to my writing, just when it comes to the definition of “poet”: writer and reader, artist and scholar. I’m not really a scholar, I’m a “scavenger,” a magpie (Melanie Fallon said), I rush through poetry picking up pieces I like and storing them and working with them and I never remember where they came from, I don’t spend time with the etiology of it all, I just (1) read, (2) enjoy, (3) save for later. I hope to retain the ferocity and speed and desperation of that search, but I also hope to gain some healthy habits. And I have to see the substantial accomplishments of my fellow students as exciting rather than intimidating. I have to forget these fears and remember that, whatever my background, I know how to write a poem, keep my eyes and ears open and learn fast.

In other news, I’m selling my armoire.

Buy it? http://stlouis.craigslist.org/fur/781244437.html