The Blues Are Still Blue

Public Service Announcement:

If you're going to ask a girl out, don't let your jaw drop when she tells you her age. Also, don't say "How did you know?" when she jokingly guesses your age as 22. Also, if she's a poet, don't refuse to accept the idea of free verse. She will say, no, I don't think we can have coffee, and everyone will feel kinda bad.

Despite (not because of!) this incident, grad pub was fun for the first time. We didn't talk about hey, where are you from, which was nice. Instead, we bitched about our classes.

Also, one of the poetry MFAs (the only one who hangs out with PhDs) has this idea that partisanship is good for poetry, that what you pay for in a journal is the editor's effort in selecting the poems. He uses the analogy of record labels--of course they have individual taste, that's the whole point, and you go with the ones you like. Whereas many, many poetry publications say they just choose "the best."

Also, I was told by a 22 year old UCI undergrad that I was surpsingly "critical" for an MFA, like, "almost one of us." By which she meant (because I asked, thinking she was using critical in the sense of negative) I could talk about literature and was not afraid of ideas. I had to respond, Well, I AM one of you.

Maybe I am, maybe I am.